


You Me Him

by Pigzxo



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Established Wynonna/Dolls, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Romance, Unrequited Wyatt/Doc, loosely based on the show You Me Her, the following tags have to do with willa/bobo not the ot3, the willa earp redemption arc we deserve, this is set in canada in case you're confused
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-19 11:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 56,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11896620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigzxo/pseuds/Pigzxo
Summary: When Dolls goes away on a stakeout, a bored and drunk Wynonna takes Willa's advice to fix her relationship: hire a hooker. Little does she know, meeting up with Doc will change her life in ways she couldn't have even imagined and force her to deal with all the parts of her life she's successfully ignored so far.Doc is far from pleased to find himself once again wrapped up in a love story out of his control, especially when he's spent the last years in love with his best friend/roommate and dating a man way too young for him. And yet he's more than happy to turn his life upside down when he finds the loves of his life.Dolls never thought he'd have a quiet marriage but he never thought he'd have to deal with a completely different life either. Stuck between protecting the people he loves and doing his job, he finds himself falling harder than he thought possible just when falling is the last thing he should be doing.





	1. Wynonna

“And don’t call me unless it’s an emergency.”

            Wynonna rolled her eyes as she leaned up against the kitchen doorway. “I think I’ve figured that out by now.” She watched as Dolls finished packing his weekend bag and zipped it closed.

            He looked up at her with a wide, real smile. “Last time, you called me because you were out of Cheetos.”

            “I fail to see how that’s not an emergency.”

            He grabbed the bag and stepped towards her, landing a soft kiss on her lips. She reached for his shirt, tried to pull him closer, but he stepped out of reach too quickly. His smile was still bright, still blinding, as he said, “Try not to get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

            “It’s my _job_ to get into trouble.”

            “It’s getting a little embarrassing bailing my wife out of jail.”

            “It’s getting a little embarrassing having the worst takedown rate because my husband’s a _cop_.”

            “You say that like it’s a dirty word.”

            Wynonna shrugged.

            “You catch bad guys too.”

            “Yeah, but I do it in like a cool, chill way.”

            Dolls smiled even bigger, threatening to swallow his whole face, and stepped forward to kiss her again. This time, Wynonna managed to curl her fingers under the waistband of his jeans and pull him closer, the hard press of their lips enough to make her knees go a little weak. Dolls wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her steady but pulled out of the kiss.

            “I’m gonna be late.”

            “Right.”

            He kissed her nose and backed out the door.

            Wynonna sighed loud enough that she hoped he heard her outside. Then she walked back into the kitchen, pulled out a bag of Cheetos and a bottle of whiskey, and started to flip through her phone. Most of her friends – the tattooed losers from her high school and the leather-clad bikers from her bounty hunting company – had stopped talking to her casually when she’d married Dolls. Not that they didn’t like him, he just had a slightly annoying habit of arresting them whenever they had a little weed on them. And then they’d moved to the suburbs – the _worst place_ in the world, if you asked Wynonna – and the friends still talking to her didn’t have the time to come down and visit her.

            With some hesitation, Wynonna pressed down on her sister, Waverly’s, name. She waited through the rings until the call went to voicemail and beeped. Wynonna said, “Hey, Dolls is out all weekend. Big stakeout thingy. So if you wanna come over for a bottle of wine or Scrabble, you’re more than welcome to.”

            She paused, wanting to say more, but hung up instead. She didn’t need to bother her little sister with the details of her marriage. Didn’t need to spill in a voicemail all the problems, all the small things Dolls did that drove her crazy, how she loved him _so so so_ much but there was just something _missing_. No. None of that was Waverly’s problem. Not when she and Nicole were newly back together after their small mishap last year – read: trial separation – and Waverly had yet to completely forgive Wynonna for her part in it. Sure, they still spoke, but Wynonna didn’t want to air her marital problems for Waverly to judge just yet.

            Waiting for a call back, Wynonna took her Cheetos and her whiskey and flopped down onto the couch. She flipped through her Netflix list looking for something to watch that she hadn’t promised to watch with Dolls. Which left very little she actually wanted to watch. She settled on first season _Supernatural_ and resisted the urge to text Dolls the lines that made her laugh. He liked it when she did, she knew he did, but he was in the middle of a stakeout and she didn’t want to risk blowing his cover.

            After two hours, she called Waverly again. Left a message again. Hesitated and decided against spilling her problems _again_.

            Another hour passed with no call and Wynonna got desperate, lonely, and drunk enough to call Willa.

            Willa answered on the first ring. “Hey, lil’ sis. Waves isn’t picking up her phone?”

            Wynonna laughed, like maybe they could both think that was a joke instead of the truth. Wynonna swirled the whiskey in her glass and then downed the rest of it in one gulp. “Dolls is out of town,” she said. “You wanna watch old _Supernatural_ episodes and play Scrabble? I got booze.”

            Willa tsked. “I don’t think Dolls would like that. You getting drunk all on your own.”

            Wynonna sighed. “Dolls doesn’t like a lot of things.”

            Willa hummed but made no move to reply. It was one of the only things Wynonna liked about her older sister – her ability to shut up when other people didn’t want a lecture. Waverly had never quite been able to pull that off. After a moment, Willa said, “Well, you know I’d _love_ to come and keep you company, but there’s only one small problem.”

            Wynonna heard chains rattle.

            “Bobo’s got me a little tied up.” Her laughter was feral.

            Wynonna made a choking noise and almost hung up the phone. But then she thought better of it – or worse – and asked, “How do you guys do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “You know.” Wynonna swallowed. She hated Willa’s husband about as much as Dolls hated her old friends but, as Dolls was so fond of saying, until there was _actual evidence_ against Bobo, there was nothing he could do about it. There was, apparently, a ton of evidence against her friends. Wynonna continued, “You guys have been together longer than me and Dolls. How do you... keep the magic?”

            Willa laughed. “You’re talking about sex? You wanna know about our sex life?”

            “God, no.” Wynonna squeezed her eyes shut to erase the mental image. “I wanna know, like, what you’ve done to keep things going in the bedroom. ‘Cause with me and Dolls it’s... I don’t know. I love him. He loves me. And I’m attracted to him, sure, but... every time I try to initiate something he pulls away. It’s like he’s... he’s bored with me.”

            “Well, maybe you’re not doing it right.”

            “Trust me. I know how sex works. Oh, but right, you weren’t around for all those abortions I had in high school.”

            Willa laughed again. “Oh, honey. I’m sure you had to _work_ to get those abortions. Maybe you’ve forgotten how to work for it. You’ve just become a complacent, horny housewife and you don’t turn him on anymore.”

            “I am not a complacent, horny housewife. I am Wynonna goddamn Earp. I’m a fucking bounty hunter, Willa. I don’t think that’s too boring for him.”

            Willa sighed. “Look, you wanna know how Bobo and I got our marriage back on track?”

            “You’re not married.”

            “He doesn’t believe in marriage.”

            “Bullshit.”

            “Do you want my help or not?”

            Wynonna almost said _not_. She really wanted to say _not_. Instead, she sighed and said, “Yes.”

            “Hire a hooker.”

            “ _What_?”

            “Look, when our marriage or partnership or sex life or whatever was in the dumps, Bobo hired a hooker to show him a few new tricks and when he came back to me with them, _wow_. Whole new ballgame, lil’ sis.”

            “First of all, ew. Second of all, _illegal_. Third of all, you were just chill with Bobo going to see some hooker?”

            “It’s not like anything happened.”

            Wynonna snorted.

            Willa continued like she hadn’t even heard. “Bobo just asked for some advice on how to spice things up a bit. That’s it. Nothing illegal about getting hook-up tips, right? Or would Dolls have to arrest you for this little conversation here?”

            “Ugh.” Wynonna pinched the bridge of her nose. “Forget it. I don’t know why I even talk to you.” She hung up before Willa could come up with something witty to say about Waverly ignoring both of them. Then she poured another glass of whiskey and drank it down like a shot.

            Hours passed. It was late, too late to still be up, but Wynonna couldn’t find the energy to get off the couch and go to sleep. She couldn’t even manage to close her eyes as Netflix played episode after episode. When, finally, around three a.m., it asked if she was still watching, she let it turn off and stared for a while at the red and black screen.

            She left the whiskey bottle half open on the coffee table – Dolls wouldn’t be back for two days anyways – and slipped off the couch, keeping a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She stumbled up the stairs and into their king-sized bed. For a moment, she stayed on her side, but then she rolled onto Dolls’. She liked the smell of him in the sheets, the indent of his body in the mattress, the way his memory foam pillow felt against her face. In moments like this, she remembered what it was like in the middle days of their relationship – after the hate sex had burned out and before the quiet companionship of long term relationships set in – when he would pull her close after sex and force her to sleep on his chest. She missed the ease of being with him, the way he made her open up even when she didn’t want to, how she’d used to love how he treated her like she was breakable.

            She missed Dolls in the golden days. Dolls when everything about him had still been new and gentle and loving and none of it had gotten on her nerves. When she’d known it was just who he was and hadn’t blamed him for not knowing who she was at all.

            Soon the pillow was wet beneath her and she rolled back to her side of the bed to get away from the salty smell. She reached for her phone to find a text from Willa – a link to an escort service followed by the words _escorts aren’t illegal_.

            Wynonna went to delete the text but fumbled it and ended up opening the link. It loaded almost instantaneously – damn Dolls and his high-speed internet – and landed on the picture of a buff, shirtless guy. Wynonna almost laughed. The guy, with his pearly smile and dark skin and toned muscles, looked just like Dolls. Enough like Dolls that she felt comfortable scrolling past the slogan of _Dates, companionship, whatever you desire – we’re here to keep you from getting lonely_ – and looking into the faces of other men, more cookie-cutter men, men who made her realize no one out there was Dolls.

            As she went, idly browsing profiles that ranged from _a fun, California guy_ to _hot rod with a need for speed_ , she laughed to herself. She considered sending Willa a thank you text – and making it clear that she meant _thanks for the laugh_ not _thanks for the idea_.

            Then she paused. On the screen was a picture of a man with a dark mustache, long-ish hair, and the clothes of an old-timey gunslinger. She laughed and clicked his profile. _A bad boy with a heart of gold. Good moral compass but willing to bend the rules. Got a smile and a laugh for days, if you’re lucky enough to hear it. Call now to book a date._ Wynonna looked for a name but found only an obvious alias – Justin, and the guy looked nothing like a Justin – and more pictures of the guy in his ridiculous cowboy hat.

            Part of her wanted to meet him just for kicks. When would she ever get to say she’d met a hooker from the days of prohibition who was twice her age? Part of her wanted to meet him just to meet him. Everything about him was the anti-Dolls – from the rebel profile to the looks – but his smile reminded her of her husband, made her feel warm and safe inside like the first time she’d met Dolls. Like the smile was meant just for her.

            Blame it on the whiskey. Blame it on the late hour. Blame it on Willa and her terrible ideas.

            Wynonna hit the call button. It rung twice before an overly cheery receptionist picked up and Wynonna winced at her five a.m. peppiness.

            “Yeah, hi,” Wynonna said. “I want to book a date with one of your guys. Uh, Justin. The guy with the hat?”

            “Yes. Justin. Great choice. Would you like to see him today?”

            Wynonna started to say _tomorrow_ before realizing tomorrow was actually today. “Yeah,” she said, feeling her stomach and heart twist at the sudden feeling that she was, in fact, betraying Dolls. But nothing would happen. Nothing would happen. “Yeah. Uh. Today.”

            “Noon?”

            “Later, maybe. Eight?”

            “Eight it is! Thank you so much and...” The receptionist rambled on about payment and policies and a million other things that Wynonna half-listened to while waiting to be asked for a credit card number or a cash deposit. When it was all finished up, the receptionist thanked her again and hung up.

            Wynonna kept her phone pressed to her ear for a minute before groaning and rolling back into Dolls’ pillow. She felt like she deserved the punishment of smelling him, of sleeping in his indent, of knowing he was gone and she was off to see another man. But she was doing it for him. She was doing it for _them._

            And nothing was going to happen.


	2. Doc

Doc woke to the incessant ringing of his goddamn cell phone. He rolled out of bed groaning and picked his hat up off the floor. Judging by the mess of vodka bottles on the floor, he and Wyatt had had a wild night – not that he remembered any of it. He headed into the kitchen wearing just the hat and his boxer shorts.

            From the fridge, Wyatt gestured to a stack of greasy breakfast food piled high on the kitchen counter. “Help yourself. You went hard last night.”

            “You didn’t?” Doc stabbed the scrambled eggs and took a large mouthful.

            Wyatt gave him a confused look. “No. I was with a client last night. How much did you drink?”

            Doc shrugged and looked at his feet. He knew Wyatt knew him well enough to tell when he was upset about something and when Wyatt realized Doc got upset whenever he mentioned meeting a _client_ things were going to get mighty weird in their two bedroom apartment. Doc continued to shovel food in his mouth, preventing himself from answering that he’d been drunk enough that he’d forgotten Wyatt had even left the house last night, and groaned with a full mouth when his phone started ringing again.

            “It’s Bobo,” Wyatt said. He didn’t even glance towards Doc’s phone, which was abandoned somewhere in between the couch cushions. “He texted me when you didn’t answer his fifth call.”

            “And you didn’t tell him I was asleep?”

            Wyatt smiled and plucked the hat from Doc’s head. He tipped it over his own brown hair and winked – an action that sent a flutter through Doc’s heart. “Thought the incessant calling might wake you up.” Wyatt picked up a sausage with his fingers and bit into it. With a full mouth, he added, “Says he’s got a job for you. Big one.”

            “Last time he said that, I ended up hog tied to a four-poster for a long weekend.”

            “And you loved it.”

            Doc shrugged, once again looking at his feet. The grease was starting to have some affect on his hangover – or at least enough that he started to trust his poker face again – so he got up to get a glass of water. Nudging around Wyatt in the small kitchen was always a bad idea but he did it anyways, time and time again, because he loved to torture himself. What else did he have to do between clients?

            Wyatt wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room. He picked up the phone and frowned. “Not Bobo. Jeremy.” He looked up at Doc with a sad, somewhat pitying look. He tossed the phone at Doc. “When are you gonna give it up with these young kids? You’re not twenty-one anymore.”

            “I’m not dead either.” Doc fumbled the catch and had to bend over to pick up the phone. He hated the thing but Bobo had insisted he get it for on-call work. Because apparently he didn’t trust Doc to be home whenever some rich whore wanted to get well-fucked. Doc sent the call to voicemail.

            “You don’t even like him,” Wyatt said, accusingly.

            “He doesn’t even like me,” Doc said. He was about to shove the phone into his pocket when it started to ring again. Bobo. Doc shelved the argument with Wyatt – the argument they’d been having for the last ten years – and answered. “What?”

            “I’ve got a job for you. A big one.”

            “What’s it pay?”

            “The usual rate. Maybe I’ll throw in a bonus if it gets me in good with the wife.”

            Doc frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            He could practically hear Bobo’s twisting smile over the phone. “Willa’s little sister. Well, not her littlest sister, but still. She’s decided to step out on her marriage and she wants to do it with you.”

            Doc stayed silent and stared, blankly, at the kitchen wall.

            “Well?”

            “You want me to fuck your married sister-in-law?”

            “Don’t worry. She’s not the gay one. Not that you’d have a problem with that.” Bobo laughed.

            Doc rubbed the bridge of his nose. Part of him wanted to say no – getting his nose even further into Bobo’s personal life had never been a goal of his – but part of him knew it was fruitless to argue. Bobo was his pimp. He told him where to go and who to fuck. He might word it as a suggestion but he knew as well as anyone else that things weren’t that nice and cheery between them.

            “Fine. Text me the details.” Doc dropped his phone on the counter.

            “His sister-in-law?” Wyatt said. “Are you fucking kidding?”

            Doc shot Wyatt a glare but said nothing. He never said anything. He didn’t get on Wyatt’s case for fucking married women and playing dominatrix for high-rolling men. He didn’t call Wyatt a hypocrite for wanting him to get his life together when Wyatt was also a man approaching forty whose main source of income was prostitution. He didn’t argue with Wyatt. He didn’t have it in him. Doc grabbed a handle of vodka out of the fridge and started to drink just as the text came in with the details.

            Turned out, Bobo’s sister-in-law didn’t want to meet until later that day, which was fine with Doc. He’d nurse his hangover and try not to get whiskey dick and watch the History channel until Wyatt turned it off so he could focus on his studies. His studies of _what_ Doc still had no idea even though he must have asked a hundred times.

            The evening came with an early sunset and Doc peeled himself off the couch to get ready. He dressed like he had in his picture – old-timey suit and vest, the hat, his mustache groomed and hair down – and stared at himself in the mirror. As he did, Wyatt came up behind him and pressed his fingers to Doc’s neck. The sultry, smoky scent of his cologne overwhelmed Doc, who forgot, momentarily, that his heart and lungs were supposed to function automatically and overcompensated.

            “Gotta smell nice for the boss’ sister,” Wyatt teased, stepping away with a smile.

            Doc forced a chuckle, grabbed his wallet, and said goodbye. He was out in the hall before he’d completely regained his senses and had to pause a moment in the elevator to relearn how to breathe. He shook it off. He had a job to do. He had to be sweet and charming and a little dangerous. Bored housewives came to him for one thing and one thing only: to get their brains fucked out. And he was good at that.     

            Bobo had sent a car. A nice touch. Doc tipped his hat at the driver and slid into the back seat. He realized, almost as an afterthought, that he’d forgotten his phone. Not that it mattered. The driver knew the hotel and got him there soon enough.

            Doc headed straight to the elevators and went up to the eighth floor. He checked his cufflinks as he walked down the hall, steadying his breath as he went. Before door 807, he put on his perfect gentleman smile and reached his hand up to knock.

            Before he could touch the door, it swung open to reveal a flustered woman in a fringed leather jacket and combat boots. Doc blinked. She blinked and stopped short to avoid colliding with him, her phone clutched tightly in her hand. Her heavy breath made her curly red hair bob up and down. Her eyes, electric blue, were wide and scared. She took a step back in the manner of someone who was used to doing so not out of fear, but to get ready to kick some ass.

            “Miss Earp, I assume,” Doc said. He tipped his hat.

            Wynonna blinked. “Did I give you my name?”

            “You gave the company your name. Your real name, I suppose, by the look you’re giving me.” Doc stepped through the door and closed it behind himself. He offered her his warmest smile. “Darling, most people give fake names.”

            “I know that,” she snapped. “I’m not stupid.”

            “No one said you were.”

            “I texted you and cancelled. Five minutes ago.”

            “And yet you’re still here.”

            She pursed her lips. “Five seconds ago.”

            Doc tsked. “The cancellation policy is a bit more complicated than that.” He sat down on the end of the bed and started to undo the laces on his boots. She watched but didn’t protest, didn’t question him. He patted the spot next to him. “Take a seat. Take off your coat. Stay a while.”

            Wynonna hesitated. “I’ll pay you but I should still go.”

            “If you’re paying, you should stay.”

            “What’s it to you?”

            Doc shrugged. He wasn’t about to explain to a stranger that avoiding his too-young boyfriend and the roommate he was in love with would be a hell of a lot easier if he actually had a client. He didn’t want to admit that she was the most interesting client he’d had in a long time, if only because of how she was dressed and how desperately she wanted to leave. “It’s your money,” he said instead. “Hate to see you throw it away on nothing.”

            “I’m married.”

            “Most women are.”

            Wynonna met his gaze steadily, unblinking. “I love my husband.”

            “I believe you.”

            She laughed. “No, you don’t. Why would I be here if I loved him?”

            “You tell me.”

            Her smile cut just short of genuine and she bit her lip. With a sigh, she sat down on the bed but not quite beside them. Two feet of space separated them and she looked at him with deadly eyes, the kind that said _look, don’t touch_. “It was my stupid sister’s idea. I don’t know why I listened to her. I never do.”

            “She told you to hire a hooker?”

            “An escort,” Wynonna corrected tightly. Her eyes narrowed. “Unless that’s not what you are.”

            Doc shrugged. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”

            Wynonna laughed – a wild and unhinged sound that made Doc smile involuntarily. “Well, that’s great,” she said. “So great. I come here to do something _perfectly legal_ but instead, if my husband ever finds out about this, he’s going to arrest me.”

            “Your husband’s a cop?”

            “One of the best.”

            Doc snorted. “A cop, a criminal, and a bored housewife. There’s a joke you don’t hear every day.”

            “I’m not a housewife,” she snapped.

            “Then what are you?”

            “A bounty hunter.”

            He smiled. “Now that’s an even better joke.”

            Wynonna smiled back, slowly, grudgingly, like she hated to find him funny. Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes and he wanted nothing more than to wipe them away with his thumbs, kiss her cheek and whisper that everything would be all right. But he knew better. He’d been in this business long enough to recognize a woman on the fence, a woman who wasn’t sure she wanted to go through with anything at all.

            “Tell me more about your husband,” Doc said instead. “What’s he like?”

            “He’s... a big softie, really. He’s got a bit of a temper sometimes but he’s got it under control now. He takes care of me. He knows me well enough to take care of me right which is... a miracle.”

            “Then what’s the problem?”

            “Who says there’s a problem?”

            “Well, I assume you’re here in this hotel room for a reason. Unless this is some game you two play to get fired up where he finds you in a hotel room with another man and lets that temper flare.”

            Wynonna snorted and shook her head. The first tear escaped down one of her cheeks and she batted it away with annoyance. “No. He’s on a sting. He won’t be coming here any time soon.”

            “Good to know.”

            He waited. He watched her collect herself slowly, piece by piece, like she was unaware of what edges she might cut herself on. He realized, sadly, that she was unused to doing this alone. Her husband probably picked up the pieces for her and kindly handed them back, letting her fit them in where she wanted them.

            “He protects me too much,” she said, suddenly, staring at her hands in her lap. “He wants to shield me from the world and everything bad and he thinks... he thinks I’ll break or something. I don’t know.”

            Doc reached out and took one of her hands in his own. She didn’t flinch away so he squeezed. “You look anything but breakable, darling.”

            “Thanks.” She pulled her hand away from his.

            Doc got up from the bed and headed over to the mini fridge. After pulling out all the alcohol, he walked back and dumped the tiny bottles onto the mattress.

            Wynonna looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.

            Doc smiled. “Unless you don’t need to liquid courage to do something unbreakable.”

            She shook her head at him but still uncapped a bottle of whiskey and drank it straight. Doc watched her head tilt back, her throat long and exposed. His heart skipped an involuntary beat at the sight of this incredible woman, downing whisky like it was water and already on to her second bottle. He grabbed a bottle of his own to catch up and let the buzz of alcohol once again flow through his veins.

            When they slowed down, they started to trade secrets for drinks. Doc learned Wynonna had set the fire that killed her dad, that she blamed herself for Willa getting wrapped up in Bobo, and that she sometimes woke up in the middle of night, rolled out of bed with her husband, and went to the living room to watch bad teen dramas just to feel like her emotions were warranted. Doc listened to it all without giving away that he knew Willa and Bobo. But he did have to give away that he was in love with his best friend, that his parents had abandoned him on a church doorstep when he was seven months old, and that when he’d found his birth mother, she’d told him he’d been a curse on her from the day he’d been conceived. Wynonna listened to this all without blinking.

            A timer went off and Doc looked around, confused and happily buzzed. Wynonna took out her phone and showed him the time. “That’s it,” she said. “You’re officially off the clock.”

            She started to get up but Doc grabbed her hand. They’d gotten progressively closer through the night – the feet between them whittling away to mere inches – and she registered his touch only by curling her fingers around his. He forced a smile but knew it was weak, knew he looked desperate and drunk. “Come on,” he said. “You didn’t even get what you came here for. And if I’m off the clock... it’s no longer illegal.”

            Wynonna snorted and squeezed his fingers. “I didn’t come here for that. My sister... she said you might be able to give me some tips on how to seduce my husband.”

            “I could do that.” Doc let go of her hand and patted the mattress. “Tell me how you usually do it.”

            “How I usually do it?” Wynonna smirked and gave him a long, considering look. Then, she hooked her fingers under the hem of her shirt and pulled it off to reveal a lacy blue bra. The smile faded off Doc’s lips as he took in her alabaster skin and the smooth, lean muscle under it. She approached and straddled his hips, gently settling into his lap. She pushed up his hat and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear with callused fingers. “This is how I usually do it,” she whispered. “I put his book aside, crawl into his lap, and start kissing him.”

            Doc managed a nod. “That” – his voice cracked and he cleared his throat – “would work.”

            Wynonna smiled at him, bit her lip.

            He kissed her. He didn’t know why or maybe he did. He knew Bobo would want payment for the extra time, want to know why it had taken him so long to get out, but he needed to taste her lips on his. He knew, from her stories, from the way she acted, that after this he would never see her again. She’d go back to her husband and her happiness and her not-so-perfect life and never think of him again. He’d go home and have one more unattainable person to daydream about.

            She didn’t pull away. She kissed him back. She pushed the hat right off his head and threaded her fingers through his hair, tilting his head back to get a better angle. They fell back into the mattress, her knees digging into his hips to keep her position, their teeth knocking together as their kiss slid apart and back together.

            Doc wrapped his arms around her, pressing her closer to him. He was more than happy to stay under her, to feel her warm weight on top of him. She seemed to need the control. The need was in her kisses, in every swirl of her tongue and broken off moan and the way her hips stuttered against his.

            Too soon, she pulled back and got to her feet. He sat up, watched her wipe her lips and back into the wall.

            “Wynonna,” he said, cautious.

            “I have to go,” she said. “I might... I have to... I need to go.” She grabbed her shirt and slammed the door behind her.

            Doc felt his heart fall into his feet the way it did when Wyatt brought some pretty girl home. He felt it in a splattering way, like the blood was on the floor and staining the carpet, because while he’d always see Wyatt again, Wynonna was gone.


	3. Dolls

“You did _what_?”

            “I kissed him. That’s all.”

            Dolls blew out a puff of air that caught on the edge of a laugh that sounded cruel, malicious, and desperate. He shook his head and gave Wynonna a look verging on pity. “That’s why you called me during the stakeout?”

            “I’m sorry, is me kissing another man not an emergency?” Wynonna had the gall to look put out and annoyed with him when she was still fucked up from kissing another guy. Her hair had frizzed on top, her shirt was rumpled, and her lips held a reddish quality to their edges that went past bad lipstick application. She crossed her arms and said, “Is your marriage falling apart not an emergency?”

            Dolls blinked. “It’s falling apart?”

            Wynonna hesitated, then shrugged. “I kissed someone else.”

            He watched the way the words came out of her mouth, the desperate way she didn’t want to say them, didn’t want them to be true. She had that look on her face – the tight, stone-faced one – that she got when she talked about things she didn’t want to be her fault. Her father’s death, Waverly’s separation, and now their marriage falling apart.

            “But nothing else happened,” Dolls said, half to confirm, half to convince himself of it. It was just a kiss. He didn’t have to be mad at her over just a kiss, not really. He could let that slide without making a federal case out of it. “You just kissed him.”

            Wynonna nodded. Her eyes never left his.

            “Then I don’t think our marriage is falling apart.”

            Wynonna snorted. “Are you kidding? The fact that I even went to meet him, that I even _hired_ him, should be a giant fucking red flag to you.”

            “Hired?”

            “Oh, that’s what you’re going to get stuck on?”

            “You kissed a prostitute?”

            “That’s what concerns you?”

            “When it means I’m going to have to take you into the station?” He took a step towards her. “Yeah, it does.”

            She held out her hands – half a gesture of surrender and half to tell him to back off – and stepped away from him, scoffing. “We kissed. After the time was over. And it’s not illegal to pay a guy to talk to you for a couple hours. Otherwise you’d be arresting therapy patients everywhere. You’d be arresting yourself.”

            “A prostitute isn’t a therapist.”

            Wynonna made a face. “Less credentials, sure, but—”

            “Wy, no.”

            She pursed her lips and shrugged again. “Fine. I did something _wrong_. But he was an escort, not a prostitute, and we both know that’s perfectly legal. So how about you cut me some slack on the _law_ , stop treating me like a suspect, and get mad that your _wife_ kissed _another man_.”

            “Is that what you want from me? Do you want me to be mad at you?”

            “I...” She cut herself off and looked away.

            Dolls watched the emotions pass over her face. Her annoyance turning to confusion back to anger and all the way around to defeat. He felt a stone’s weight in his stomach and didn’t know what to think about it. Was that what she wanted from him? That weight in his stomach? Because that wasn’t anger, wasn’t what he felt when his vision went red and the world started to spin and his therapist told him just to _breathe_ and to remember who he really was. That he wasn’t a monster. That he was just a person. No. That weight was the knowledge that Wynonna hadn’t surprised him by calling in the middle of the night to tell him she’d kissed someone else and their marriage was falling apart. That weight was the complete lack of shock he’d felt when she accused him of treating her like a suspect. He always had. That was how he’d met her. She’d been a suspect in the suspicious death of an escaped convict and had cleared herself with the simple words, “I don’t get my money if he’s dead.” That weight was knowing that he’d never been enough for her, that he never would be, that she wasn’t the cookie-cutter, white-picket-fence wife he’d always pictured himself with. The weight was knowing he could never be happy with that kind of wife. That it was only Wynonna for him and she wasn’t, maybe never would be, happy.

            Wynonna swallowed hard and met his eyes again. Tears sparkled in their blue depths, giving away everything, letting him read her like a book. She cleared her throat. “Maybe. Maybe I just want to know that you care.”

            Dolls shook his head. “Why’d you do it?”

            She shrugged. “Willa had some fucked up explanation for why it would make our relationship stronger. I was drunk and it was late and he looked like everything you weren’t, so I thought... I thought it wouldn’t mean anything at all.”

            He tried to unpack that as best he could. “Did it mean something?”

            “What? Nothing happened.”

            “That’s not what I asked.” He took another step forward, slow, careful, trying not to spook her. Here, in their bedroom, with the sea foam comforter and the grey walls, she was most likely to break into tiny pieces. And while he was more than happy to pick them up, he was always worried he missed a few. “Did it mean something? Did you... like him?”

            Wynonna shook her head and shrugged at the same time. “No. I don’t know. No.”

            “Wy.”

            She licked her lips. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. “He was nice. Funny. Charming.”

            “You liked him.”

            “He was nice.”

            Dolls swallowed hard and forced himself to ask, “Did you like him more than me?”

            “What? I don’t even know him.” Wynonna turned to face him, concern all over her. She reached for him and gently caressed his cheek. With a second’s hesitation, she moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “I love you. I like you. I’m not going to leave you for a hooker.”

            Dolls let out a breathless burst of laughter and kissed the side of her head. One of his hands reached into her hair and he flattened it carefully, working out the kinks and smoothing the static. “But you did like him?”

            “It was nice to talk to someone,” Wynonna whispered. “Someone who didn’t know me. Someone who couldn’t judge me. Someone who wouldn’t respond to anything and everything I said about you with ‘Dolls is such a great guy.’” A sad laugh escaped her and turned into a sob. She bit down on it, silent for a long moment as Dolls pulled her closer to his chest. “He was different.”

            “Good different?”

            “Yeah.”

            Dolls bit down on his lip, tried not to let his body go tense as the weight got a little heavier. Instead, he kissed the top of her head. Soon, she started shaking and he felt wet tears against his chest. His legs got tired, his arms started to hurt, and he wanted nothing more than to sit down. But he didn’t dare move her or disturb her, even as he wondered about this guy she went to see, wondered what he looked like, wondered what he had that he didn’t.

            Eventually, Wynonna pulled away and went to the bathroom to splash water on her face. Dolls took the time to get into his pajamas – peeling off the grey sweater and jeans he’d worn to stakeout the coffee shop – and text his partner to tell her everything was okay at home. When he got the text back, a simple _false alarm again?_ , he felt a tug on that weight and a flash of his old anger.

            He tucked himself into bed and turned off the lamp on his side even though he was wide awake. Wynonna came back into the room, rummaged through the dresser and got ready for bed. The bed shifted slightly as she got in on the other side and turned out her own light. Almost as an afterthought, she whispered, “Goodnight, Dolls.”

            He didn’t reply.

            He waited.

            When Wynonna’s soft snores filled the room, Dolls got out of bed and grabbed her laptop. He went downstairs before he fired it up and started to go through her search history. It didn’t take long to figure out that she hadn’t found the hooker on it – she hadn’t cleared her search history for a decade – so he wound his way back upstairs to grab her phone.

            Snatching it off the bed table, he had a brief moment of regret when he was confronted with the pass code. He knew it – Wynonna had given him the phone and asked him to text someone more than once – but it wasn’t so he could go through her stuff. Glancing back at her sleeping form, he made the decision. She wouldn’t know. And if she found out, well, she’d kissed someone else.

            He flipped through her phone’s search history and then looked at her texts with Willa. There. He clicked on the link and bit back a curse when it brought him to the main page of a site with a dozen guys. He didn’t have a name. He didn’t have a description. He didn’t—

            He knew his wife way too fucking well.

            Transferring the number to his phone, he placed Wynonna’s stuff back in its original position and crawled back into bed. He managed to sleep for a few hours – three, to be exact – and then got up to work off his nerves.

            Sweaty and not feeling any better, Dolls walked into the kitchen while wiping his face with a towel. Wynonna, perched on the counter, stuck out a leg to prevent him from getting to the fridge.

            “Hey, asshole.” She munched on a bite of apple as he looked up. “I know I’m not a fucking cop but I can still detect.”

            He narrowed his eyes at her and shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Wy.”

            “Come on, Dolls.” She slid down from the counter and stepped up to him. Even with her head tilted back to meet his eyes, she managed to look strong enough to crush him under her boots. She smiled, big and bright and ready to tear him to shreds. “We both know what you were doing at two a.m. So admit it.”

            He smiled and said nothing.

            She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer, her smile softening. “I know you better than you think I do.” She kissed his chin, his lips, and then the tip of his nose before letting go. Around another bite of the apple, she said, “Justin takes dates with guys too, in case you’re curious.”

            “I knew it was Justin,” he said.

            Wynonna smirked at him over her shoulder. “Am I that obvious?”

            “Well, it’s no secret you’ve got massive daddy issues.”

            She flipped him off, still smiling, and grabbed her coat. As she put it on, she said, “I’m outta here for a few hours. An arsonist skipped bail in Montana and they think he’s on our side of the border.” She tossed the rest of the apple at the trash can and hit the lid, sending the fruit cascading over the kitchen floor.

            Dolls laughed. “I’ve got it.”

            “Have fun with Justin.” The door slammed.

            Dolls got on his knees and started to wipe apple off the floor. Part of him was glad Wynonna knew exactly what he was up to, that he couldn’t keep secrets from her. In the beginning, that had been a bad thing. A bounty hunter that had his number, knew everything he was thinking, could work around all his blind spots. Now it was endearing and incredibly dangerous. Because part of him wished he’d managed to keep the secret, managed to punch the guy out without Wynonna ever knowing. Now she’d want to know how it went. Now she’d expect to know if he was jealous or not. After seeing the guy’s picture, it was hard to say he was jealous. He’d looked in a mirror once or twice in his life, after all.

            He made a lunch date with Justin after the apple was all cleaned up. With no work, since he was supposed to be on the stakeout still, he spent the morning perusing Netflix and wondering what Wynonna had watched without him. He didn’t stoop to stalking her Netflix profile though; he hated to think how that conversation would go.

            At twenty to noon, Dolls took a quick shower and dressed in jeans and a t-shirt he didn’t mind getting blood on. Grabbing a jacket, he got in his black pick-up truck and drove down to the restaurant the escort service had suggested. The place, while upscale enough, was in the seedier part of town and took Dolls a good twenty minutes to get to. He wanted to be late though. He wanted to see Justin before Justin saw him.

            Entering the restaurant, Dolls took a cursory look around. The walls were dark green and accented in a yellow that was not quite gold. The small, white tables were crowded close, ruining the attempt at an intimate atmosphere made by the small candles and dim lighting. Because of the pillars everywhere, Dolls couldn’t spot Justin’s table, couldn’t see him at all.

            “Hello,” Dolls said to the hostess. “I have a reservation under Dolls.”

            The hostess checked her computer and said, “Yes, of course, sir. Is the rest of your party with you?”

            The words sent a chill down Dolls’ spine. He was seventeen minutes late, giving Justin more than enough time to get there. Had Wynonna warned him? Had someone else? While these thoughts went through his head, Dolls informed the hostess he was alone and allowed himself to be led to a table in the back corner. At least he’d be able to see Justin coming.

            Dolls ordered water – not wanting to give the impression he’d be staying long – and stared at the front of the restaurant, waiting.

            A hand came down on his shoulder from behind, gentle and reassuring.

            Dolls looked up, shocked.

            Justin stared down at him, all charming sideways smile and dishevelled hair under his black hat. He patted Dolls on the shoulder once and then came around to sit across from him. “Sorry about the scare, friend. Always easier to come into these places through the back doors, hope you don’t mind.”

            “Not at all.”

            Justin smiled wide. “Should we start with a drink?” He gestured to the waiter.

            “We won’t be here that long.”

            “Well, I like a man who knows what he wants but we really could have met in a hotel room if that’s all you’re after.”

            Dolls smirked. “I’d be careful what you say to me, _Justin_. I’m a cop.”

            “It’s not illegal to sell sex, officer.” His smile faded but lingered on the edges of his lips. “Just to buy it. So I think you should ask yourself whose gonna be on the wrong side of a pair of handcuffs if you report anything.”

            Dolls let out a puff of a laugh. “Do you know who I am?”

            “Should I?”

            “You fucked my wife.”

            Justin frowned. “That doesn’t exactly narrow down the possibilities.”

            “Last night. You met my wife in a hotel room.”

            “Last night I didn’t fuck anyone’s wife. I may have _kissed_ your wife but if she told you anything more happened, I’m afraid to say she misled you.” He reached for Dolls’ water glass and took a sip. “If it’s any consolation, friend, she loves you a mighty lot.”

            “I’m not your friend.”

            “I get that you wanna take a swing at me, darlin’. I even get that you may wanna knock a few teeth outta my pretty smile. But I think we can be a little more original than that, can’t we?” Justin rose from his chair and grabbed Dolls by the neck of his t-shirt.

            “Where are you– what–” Dolls sputtered but Justin quickly let go of his shirt collar and kept walking. With no other choice, Dolls followed. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? I paid for an hour.”

            “You, my non-friend, paid for companionship. Not for a barnyard brawl.” Justin turned around with a neutral expression and then pushed open the door to the bathroom. “So let’s not make a scene in the middle of the restaurant. Don’t want everyone knowing I made a cuckhold outta you, do ya?”

            “You little—”

            “You can punch me, but it won’t undefile your wife.”

            Dolls’ hand curled into a fist as Justin stepped into the bathroom. Dolls grabbed the door to stop it from slamming shut and marched in after, ready to swing, ready to knock out more than just a couple of teeth.

            Of course, he should have been ready for a counterattack. Justin shoved him up against the wall – hard – and Dolls barely caught his breath before their lips were pressed together. His lips were hot and rough, like recently used sandpaper. He kissed with wild abandon, with the kind of biting twist that made alcohol so enjoyable, and Dolls forgot, for a moment, why he’d been so mad only seconds before.

            Justin pulled back and whispered, “How long has it been since you fucked your wife?”

            Dolls groaned. “You’re an asshole.”

            “No one’s denying that.” When Dolls tried to get away, Justin pushed him back against the wall with surprising strength. He snaked a hand in between them and pressed his palm up against Dolls’ crotch. “But, darlin’, you’re wound tighter than a spool of twine and yet your lovely wife tells me you’ve been batting off her advances. And if anyone’s in need of release...” He trailed off as he started to stroke Dolls through his jeans.

            Dolls did his best to swallow a groan but barely managed it. He saw the smirk curl onto Justin’s lips and he wanted to punch – kiss – it off. Heat pooled low in his belly, made his breath come in short bursts as he fought to keep his mouth closed, to stay as calm as possible, to not give Justin the satisfaction. Not that he was quite managing the last part. Justin looked damn pleased with himself, staring into Doll’s eyes with a self-satisfied smirk as he worked his skilled hand over hard denim.

            “Justin,” Dolls ground out.

            “It’s Doc, actually.”

            “That suits you better.”

            Doc smiled and leaned in closer so that Dolls could barely see his eyes. “And your name? I assume it’s not Johnny.”

            “Dolls.”

            “Not much of a name.”

            “It’s what everyone calls me.”

            Doc hummed, reacting to both the growing hardness in Dolls’ pants and the strain of his voice. Dolls tried, desperately, to grasp enough of his mental acuity to figure out how he’d gotten himself into this situation. Had Wynonna set it up? No, she wouldn’t. Had Doc simply never wavered from his original plan for the restaurant? Even once he’d been told who Dolls was? Dolls groaned as the last of his senses left him and white hot pleasure burst through his veins.

            Doc kissed him as he came, his hand slowing as his tongue lapped into Dolls’ mouth. Dolls whined deep in his throat and hated himself for it. When Doc backed off, he managed to make no sound though, just stood slumped against the white-tiled wall as Doc washed his hand and came back with damp paper towels.

            “I could give you my jacket,” Doc said as Dolls dabbed, uselessly, at his ruined jeans. “Tie it around your waist and cover up.”

            Dolls laughed a little. “And how would I get it back to you?”

            Doc shrugged, the slightest ghost of a smirk on his face.

            Dolls shook his head. “This was a crime. We committed a crime.”

            “You committed a crime.”

            “You aided and abetted.”

            “Not sure that would hold up in court, darlin’.”

            “Stop calling me that.”

            “Your wife liked it.”

            Dolls glared. “Do you want me to hit you?”

            Doc shook his head and stepped forward quickly to plant a parting kiss on Dolls’ lips. “I’m not into the rough stuff,” he said as he stepped through the bathroom door and disappeared back into the restaurant.

            Dolls cursed under his breath as he finished cleaning up the mess in his pants. Tossing the paper towels into the garbage can, he stopped at the sink to wash his hands and splash water on his face. He expected to find himself shaking, wound up, overwhelmed, but instead he felt nothing. Or not quite nothing, but calm, like finally the world had stopped spinning towards the sun at a breakneck pace.

            Dolls held up a hand and found it steady.

            He hadn’t stopped shaking since he quit the army.


	4. Wynonna

Wynonna jumped out of her truck at a truck stop some fifty kilometres from the border. She walked with the kind of purpose that made middle-aged assholes back the hell off but maintained the casual ease of someone stopping for a piss. As she passed the grubby windows, she checked the patrons inside one by one.

            There.

            The arsonist sat with a grey hood over his head, shaggy black curls falling over his forehead. Wynonna recognized the tattoo on his pointer finger – an arrow pointing towards his nail. Amateur hour. Knowing she had the time, she headed to the bathroom to do her business and came back out to order a coke.

            When the cashier gave her the drink, she headed over to the arsonist’s table and slid into the booth across from him. Before he could move, she put her foot up on the seat next to him. She sipped her coke.

            “What?” he said.

            “Mmm, is that how you greet girls, Albie?” She looked up at him from under her lashes, frowning. “That might be why you don’t have a girlfriend. I thought it was the name initially but turns out you’re just an asshole.”

            “How do you know my name?”

            “Oh, it’s really simple, Albie.” Wynonna reached for his wrist and quickly handcuffed him to herself. “When people like you skip bail, the court sends people like me to find you. And you were a real easy one here, Albie. Sitting this far from the border, your tattoo not even covered? You didn’t even ditch the van you stole from the supermarket parking lot. Please. Next time, think for a second, Albie.”

            He pulled back and Wynonna slammed his wrist hard onto the table. She stood. “Look, we can do this the hard way or the easy way, but given that you’re already cuffed to me, fighting’s not gonna do much other than make us both look like assholes. So how about you stand up and get in my truck so I can get you behind bars again, okay?”

            Albie spat on her jacket.

            She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. Then she tugged him out of the booth, not caring if he was stumbling and dragging his feet. She’d dragged more than a hundred pounds of dead weight behind her before. She’d taken down bigger, badder guys. Of course, it was always the small timers that decided they could deck a bounty hunter without getting some serious shit for it.

            A couple people in the place started whispering as she passed but none of them tried to stop her. Gotta love good ol’ bystanders. Would let anything happen if it didn’t concern them personally.

            Wynonna yanked open the passenger door of her truck and started the long, awkward, tiring process of shoving Albie up and into the seat. Eventually, she got him half-rolled into the truck and took the cuff off herself to lock it to the door. Then she slammed the door, hitting his feet in the process and hoping it hurt.

            Soon, he started screaming about his rights. Wynonna blasted Zeppelin to drown him out as she hit the gas. Usually she took the bad guys right to Dolls – it guaranteed an easy drop – but Albie wasn’t gonna last that far. She turned in at the first police station she saw and jumped from the truck.

            The officer at the desk barely looked up as she approached.

            “Hey,” she said. “I’ve got a fugitive in my truck. Thought you’d want him.”

            The man raised his eyes along with one eyebrow. “What?”

            “You know. A guy committed a bunch of crimes in the States? Set some fires? They said he escaped over the border so I did what I do and picked him up?” Wynonna bit her lip as the officer stared blankly back at her. “Do you want the asshole or not? Because I really don’t feel like driving another hour to find a police station that knows what the hell I’m talking about.”

            “Yeah, sure.” He shuffled a few things around and gave her a stack of papers with a pen. “Which truck?”

            Wynonna gave him the details, filled out the forms, and then stepped out of the way as two officers pulled the struggling Albie into the station. She saluted him as he passed. With a last – bitter – word of thanks to the desk officer, she headed back to her truck and started home.

            It was late by the time she got there. Dark, almost. Sure, she’d taken some back roads and grabbed food more than once, but she didn’t think it’d taken her past the sunset. She jumped out of the truck in the driveway and headed into the house.

            “I’m home,” she called, dropping her keys into the bowl by the door.

            No response.

            Wynonna kicked off her boots, shrugged off her jacket, and started into the house. “Dolls? I’m back.” She looked around the corner before turning it and frowned. He never went to bed before she came home – something that had once been sweet and now seemed like a hassle – and she was starting to worry. “Dolls? If you’re not dead, give me a shout. A grunt if you’re tied up in here.”

            Nothing.

            She climbed the stairs to their bedroom and opened the door. The room was dark but there was no bulge in the bed to indicate Dolls’ presence. Chilled, Wynonna dropped down on the end of the bed and pulled out her phone. No missed calls. No missed texts. She called Dolls’ number.

            Voicemail.

            “Hey, Dolls. It’s me. I... uh, well, I kinda expected you to be home when I got here. So unless Justin murdered you or called the cops after you hit him, I don’t know what’s going on. Call me back.” She hung up and then texted him for good measure – _check your voicemail_.

            The impending sense of doom that she’d kept in the back of her mind suddenly flooded every vein in her body. She felt it like ice water injected straight to her heart. All day, she’d managed not to ask herself whether or not she’d ruined her marriage. All day, she’d managed not to worry about whether or not Dolls was mad at her. All day, she’d forgotten that she’d left her husband about to go punch the teeth out of the man she had kissed. A man she really, really liked.

            On a whim, she called the agency. When they answered, she said, “Is there any way you could get me in touch with Justin directly? I, uh, forgot something in the hotel room and was wondering if he’d picked it up?”

            She waited through the inevitable silence, the speech on company policy, and then launched immediately into her sob story. Her grandmother’s necklace. Priceless. Endlessly important to her. She’d promised it to her daughter for her sixth birthday. And the woman on the other end slowly broke down until she rattled off a phone number, punctuating it with, “but you didn’t get it from me.”

            Wynonna thanked her, hung up, and dialed Dolls again. Nothing. She called Justin with shaking fingers, trying to ignore the tears streaming down her cheeks.

            “Hello?” His voice had a happy tilt to it, the kind of cheerful upturn that told her there was whiskey on his breath, maybe someone else tucked under his arm. The thought sent an unbidden burst of pain through her chest, so hot and fierce that she forgot how to speak for a moment. Justin asked, “Who may I ask am I speaking with?”

            “Do you always talk like that?” Wynonna said. “Like you just left a Western?”

            He chuckled. “Wynonna Earp. To what do I owe the repeat pleasure? I know your husband’s not still out of town.”

            Wynonna let out a breath she wasn’t aware she’d been holding. “So you saw him today? He definitely went to see you?”

            “Yes, Wynonna, I did have the pleasure of meeting your husband today.” He had slowed down his words deliberately. “Did he not tell you that? Because I don’t think I should be the one telling you what happened between us.”

            “I know what happened. He saw you, he hit you, he yelled, he was gone. I need to know if you know where he went afterwards.”

            “Why?”

            “He’s not here. He’s not home. And I... I don’t know where he could be.” She hated the way her voice caught on the words, hated the way she took panicked breaths between each sentence, hated the tears making her cheeks sticky. She sniffled. “Please tell me you know where he is. I don’t... I don’t know what else he’d do.”

            “What about his friends? Have you called them?”

            “Dolls doesn’t have friends.”

            Justin hummed. “Surely there must be someone.”

            “Justin—”

            “Doc. It’s Doc.”

            Wynonna took a deep breath. Somehow just knowing that made her relax a little. Or maybe it was the change in the tone of his voice, the softness, the sudden turn from drunken happiness to genuine concern. She hated how much she liked being taken care of, liked being thought of as protectable. Right then, she vowed to never get mad at Dolls for wanting her safe ever again.

            “Please,” she whispered. “Do you have any idea?”

            “He didn’t say anything to me,” Doc said. “Try calling people he knows. People he speaks to regularly if he doesn’t have friends. What about his cop buddies? Have you tried them?”

            Wynonna shook her head. “They don’t like me.”

            Doc hummed. “How about this? You tell me his precinct number and I’ll go down to the station to see if anyone’s seen him. Make up some bullshit story about how he gave me his card or something. You call your friends, family, anyone who might’ve seen him. I’ll give you a shout if I turn anything up, all right?”

            “Thank you.” Wynonna hung up without another word, not wanting to hear his reassurances or anything else he might say. She held her phone tightly between her clasped hands, closed her eyes tight, and forced herself to breathe. She hated how calm Doc made her, how instantly he knew what she needed to hear. Then, without thinking, she called Waverly.

            “Hey, Wy, it’s not really a good ti—”

            “Is Dolls with you?”

            “What?”

            “Dolls isn’t home. I don’t know where he went. Is he with you?”

            Waverly was silent for a long moment, only the sound of dishes clattering peppering the line. “No, Wy. He’s not.” She paused with a slight hum and then said, somewhat distracted, “Do you think something happened to him? He was on a stakeout, wasn’t he?”

            “Yeah, but... no. He came home. I... it’s not important. He’s not home. He should be.”

            “What aren’t you telling me?”

            “Willa told me to hire a hooker so I did and I told Dolls and he went to punch said hooker and apparently he did that but then he didn’t come _home_ and I’m freaking out, Waves!” Wynonna said it all in one breath, hoping to drown out her sister’s shocked gasp. No luck. “Please. Where else would he be?”

            “I... I don’t know. Work? Therapy?”

            “He would have left a note.”

            “Is his stuff still there?”

            Wynonna jumped up from the bed and started opening drawers. As far as she could tell, all of Dolls’ stuff was still in place, the few things missing more likely to be in the laundry than in a duffle bag. “Yeah.” She exhaled heavily. “Yeah. It’s all here.”

            “Then you need to trust he’s coming home,” Waverly said. “There’s nothing else to do.” She paused for a moment, then added, “I really need to go. We have people over. Are you going to be okay?”

            “Yeah, have fun. Bye, Waves.”

            Wynonna stared at her phone for a moment and then hit Willa’s number. Voicemail. She hesitated over the name of Dolls’ boss, then decided against it. If he wasn’t at work, it was probably better not to drag his boss into his personal life.

            With a sigh, she hit the call button on Dolls’ contact info again. “Come on, Xavier. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick u—”

            She heard the phone ring downstairs. That stupid ABBA song Dolls had insisted on changing his ringtone to and then refused to put on silent. Dropping her phone, she dashed down the stairs and into the kitchen where, sure enough, Dolls stood with one hand on the counter and the other on his head.

            She barrelled into him and held him tight. Slowly, slowly, his arms came down around her and she smelled the booze on his breath. “I thought you were dead,” she murmured. “I thought you’d left. I didn’t know which was worse.”

            He chuckled. “My death doesn’t automatically win?”

            “Well, if you’d left, I’d have wanted you dead, so, no.” She pulled back with a sniff and crossed her arms over her chest. “So? What do you have to say for yourself Mr. I-Must-Know-Where-You-Are-At-All-Times?”

            “I’m sorry.” He smiled, tired, and rubbed her arms. He pulled her closer and rested their foreheads together. “I went out. I got a few drinks. I thought I’d beat you back.”

            “It’s after midnight.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            Wynonna swallowed hard and forced herself to meet his swirling, dark eyes. “Why?” Her voice cracked and she tried hard to swallow the last of her upended sadness. “Who’d you go drinking with? Why’d you go drinking? Since when do you drink?”

            He brushed a hand through her curls, tucked them behind one ear, and she let a sob shudder through her body. He pulled her close and whispered, “I’m not gonna leave you, Wy. I wouldn’t. I would never. I love you. More than you know.”

            She kept crying.

            “I need to tell you something.”

            “Okay.”

            “I kissed Doc.”

            Wynonna’s breath hitched, but the sob didn’t come. She pulled back to look Dolls in the eye. “What?”

            “I kissed him.” Dolls swallowed hard. “And that’s not all. He, uh... gave me a hand job in the bathroom.”

            She blinked. “I thought you went there to punch him.”

            “I was going to and then he surprised me with a kiss and things got out of hand from there.”

            Wynonna stepped out of his grip. She opened her mouth to say something, lost the words, and then shut her mouth again. “So, let me get this straight. You go to punch the guy I kissed, end up kissing him too and going _further_ , and then, what? Get drunk to forget that you kissed a guy?”

            “No. I’ve... I’ve kissed guys before. It wasn’t a big deal.”

            Wynonna raised her eyebrows. “You’ve kissed guys before?”

            “Dated a few, even.” Dolls shrugged. “I’m bisexual.”

            “And you didn’t think to tell me, your wife, this?”

            “It never seemed important.”

            “Important? I... I’m your wife, Dolls. We’re _married_. It doesn’t matter what’s _important._ I want to know everything about you and I think your sexuality is something I should know!”

            “Okay. Okay. You’re right.” Dolls held up his hands in a cautious surrender. He met her eyes with his own, his stare wide, and Wynonna felt like a wild animal he was trying to tame. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. “I’m sorry. Again. But can we focus on the important part?”

            “What important part?”

            “I cheated on you.”

            She shrugged. “I cheated on you first.”

            “Are you okay?”

            She shrugged again. “I’m a little jealous, but—”

            “Of him?” Dolls said. “Or of me?”

            “What?”

            Dolls swallowed hard and said, “Look, I... I get it. He’s... he’s really something.”

            “Are you telling me you have feelings for him?”

            Dolls opened his mouth, shrugged, and said nothing.

            Wynonna nodded, not really processing anything. “Wow.” She took a step back from the counter and turned around, staring into their empty living room. She remembered, oddly, their first tour through the house. The real estate agent had pointed out the crown moldings, told them they could paint over the blue-grey but they never had, and Dolls had whispered in her ear all the places they could hide their guns. She laughed, now, remembering the tickling of his words in her ear, how close he’d stood to her, the warmth of his body next to hers. The laugh trickled into a sob.

            “Wy—”

            She shook her head and turned around, wiping tears off her cheeks. “We’re having sex,” she said. “Right now.”

            Dolls blinked. “What?”

            “I’m your wife, so man up and fuck me.”

            Dolls cracked a smile and finally started laughing.

            Wynonna tried hard to swallow her own smile. “Don’t. I’m not joking. We’re having sex and you’re not going to get out of it by laughing at me.”

            That made Dolls laugh harder.

            Wynonna took three long strides towards him, grabbed the back of his neck, and pulled him into a bruising kiss. His laughter died as the breath left his lungs and she pulled him forward by his belt buckle. When she broke their lips apart to sit down on the arm of the couch, he whispered, “Okay. Nothing funny about that.”

            “Shut up,” she whispered and brought their lips back together.

            He grabbed onto her hip and lowered her slowly onto the couch cushions. His weight over her, warm and familiar, made sparks flow through her veins. She pressed up to touch more of him, ran her fingers under his shirt, and did her best to keep their lips together. She loved the taste of him, like stale coffee and the melted chocolate bars in his truck. Curling a leg around his hip, she brought him closer, rubbed up against his crotch until he groaned.

            “Get this off,” she whispered, pulling at his shirt until it came over his head. She spread her hands down his abs, feeling each one under her fingers. Every time she had Dolls’ body on her own, she was reminded what a perfect specimen he was, how smooth his dark skin was, how sweat glistened on him, how every muscle of his tightened around her.

            His fingers dug under the hem of her jeans and started to pull them down. His fingers grazed over her clit and she bit back a moan knowing they’d be gone a moment later. Laying hot kisses down her neck, he manoeuvred her out of her pants and then started work on his own. Wynonna held the back of his neck and stroked his back, grabbed his ass once it was exposed to bring him closer.

            He chuckled against her skin. “Eager?”

            “I went to a hooker to make you sleep with me,” she said. “I think we’re past thinking I don’t want you.”

            He kissed her with the smile still on his face, all teeth and tongue and she loved it.

            His hard cock slid against the crook of her hip and she gasped.

            “Dolls,” she said, her tone of voice leaving no room for questions.

            He kissed her nose and brought a hand down between her legs. She spread her thighs, giving him plenty of room to press against the mound of her clit and start rubbing in slow circles. Her head dropped back, moans leaving her mouth, as he kissed her collarbone, nosing deeper into the fabric of her tank top.

            Then he slid a finger inside of her and she trembled, biting down around a truly embarrassing noise. He pried her lips open with his own, kisses slow and teasing, and worked her open with careful fingers. “Still on birth control?” he asked, soft.

            “Still clean?” she bit back.

            “Don’t worry. We didn’t get skin to skin.”

            Dolls pulled back just enough to line himself up and then pushed in. He didn’t go slow, didn’t have to, and Wynonna grunted at impact. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be full of him, how great it felt to burn with the feeling of them meeting like this. And as he kissed her, she tasted all the promises they had made to each other at the start of this thing. Just sex. No feelings. No strings.

            She laughed.

            Dolls kissed her through the sound, kissed the happy tears off her face, and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, even as he pounded into her without a care for how delicate she may be.

            “I love you too,” she managed.

            Their lips met and he went back to rubbing her clit. With a moan, she lost herself to the riding wave of an orgasm and then stayed hazy while Dolls fucked her through the aftershocks. He came soon, too soon, before Wynonna could really feel the slight pain of overstimulation, and rested his head in the crook of her neck as he spilled over the edge. She felt the hot spill of him, so foreign after so many years of careful condom use. She wanted to laugh again but didn’t have enough breath for it.

            Before either of them could move, could think of moving, Dolls’ phone began to buzz. Wynonna palmed the floor for it, found it in his jeans, and then brought it to her ear. “Hello?” she said, breathless, finally finding the last edge of her laughter.

            “Hello, Mrs. Dolls?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Can you tell your husband there’s a man here at the station demanding to speak to him immediately? Says it’s an urgent manner and Detective Dolls is the only one he’ll speak to.”

            Wynonna blinked wearily before she figured it out. “Can I speak to him? Tell him it’s Wynonna.”

            There was a slight scramble on the other end during which Dolls pulled out and got up from the couch. He came back with a wet towel just as Doc came on the line and said, “It seems you’ve found your husband, darling.”

            “I did. Thank you.”

            “Any time.”

            He hung up as the towel hit Wynonna’s sticky thighs and she sighed into the feeling as Dolls began to clean her up. He wiped with careful strokes. Looking up at her, he said, “What was that about?”

            “I asked Doc to look for you. But it’s okay now.” She dropped Dolls’ phone back onto his crumpled jeans and leaned in for another kiss. She pressed hard, got a chuckle out of him, and then pulled back. “I’m gonna take a shower. You want in?”

            Dolls smiled. “Of course.”


	5. Doc

Doc got back to his apartment a little after three a.m. He did his best to be quiet – closing the door with the knob turned, creeping into his room on socked feet, etcetera – but Wyatt, with his bat ears, still heard him. Before Doc fully shut the door to his room, the light in the living room went on and Doc cursed.

            “What are you doing up?” Wyatt groaned, his voice rough and throaty the way it always was after sleep or sex. “It’s... fucking late.”

            “Go to sleep, then,” Doc said, already feeling his stomach rolling. He tried to shut the door.

            “Tell me where you were.” Wyatt had smartened up, his voice clearer, and he’d gotten a hand wrapped around the doorframe. Doc almost squished his fingers before Wyatt pushed the door open to fix him with an incredulous glare. “Since when do you not tell me what’s up? You ran the fuck out on Jeremy earlier, then you don’t show up for hours, and now you’re sneaking in in the middle of the goddamn night and you don’t wanna tell me where you were?”

            Doc gave Wyatt the boredest look he could muster. “I got a better offer.”

            “Than Jeremy? The sure thing you’ve been fucking for months with no strings?”

            Doc licked his bottom lip. “Yeah.”

            Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

            “What does it matter?”

            Wyatt shrugged. “You just never talk to anyone other than me, Jeremy, and Bobo. So unless you’re blowing our pimp—”

            “Don’t be vulgar.”

            Wyatt held up his hands in surrender but refused to take a step back. Doc spared a moment of inattention to realize how close they were standing in the doorway, how good Wyatt smelled after being wrapped in his sheets for a few hours. He spared a thought for the late hour, the alcohol abuse, and how _easy_ it would be to step forward and kiss him. But then the twisting feeling came back to his stomach and he wondered if it was because of Wyatt’s gentle homophobia, Jeremy, or something else entirely.

            “Who’s the better offer?” Wyatt prompted, not backing down.

            “Boss’ sister-in-law,” Doc said. He met Wyatt’s eyes, hoping for a flash of surprise or hurt, but instead Wyatt just grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “What?” Doc said.

            “You always were so fucking predictable.” Wyatt stepped out of the doorway and shut the door himself.

            Doc stood there staring at the back of the door. He wanted to scream through the wood. He wanted to open it and go after Wyatt. He wanted to slam Wyatt against a wall and demand to be told _what the goddamn hell_ that was supposed to mean. Predictable? Doc Holliday? He’d never been called predictable in his life. And what, exactly, was so goddamn predictable about sleeping with a married client behind Bobo’s back? Not that that’s what he’d been doing but damn him if he’d tell Wyatt he’d done a client a fucking favour.

            Doc sighed and fell back on his bed. For a moment, he considered falling asleep just like that – feet on the floor, fully dressed, hat slightly tilted off his head – but he thought better of it. He wasn’t twenty anymore. His back would ache, his legs would stiffen, and the clothes would ripen past the point of wearing.

            Slowly, he forced himself to properly get ready for bed. As he did, his thoughts wandered to Wynonna and Dolls. He was happy she’d found him. He was happy she sounded happy to have found him. Part of him needed to know that they were all right. He never got to see both sides of an unhappy marriage but, in their case, neither side seemed all that unhappy. Confused, maybe. Unsure of what they wanted, definitely. But unhappy? He couldn’t reasonably call either of them that when he’d heard them speak of each other.

            Then he thought about the few words Wynonna had spoken to him, the breathlessness of her voice, the pure happiness. And he thought, maybe, that he’d heard a version of it just after she’d pulled away from him. An unexpected flurry of pain spiked in his chest. But what right did he have to that? It wasn’t like he could be jealous Wynonna had slept with her husband. Not when he’d had the pleasure of feeling her husband hard and throbbing in his hand hours earlier. Warmth pooled in his belly at the thought. More than just that thought though. It was the thought of them together, of Dolls on top of Wynonna, of Wynonna breathless and laughing and pulling him closer, that really got Doc going.

            He swore and sat up quick, no longer ready to get into bed. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to think of something, anything, else. After all, he’d never see either of them again. They’d worked it out. They were fucking again and that was all either of them had wanted. So what if he had a part in it? Neither of them would spare another thought to him.

            Surprisingly, he found tears in his eyes and blinked them away fast. He already had one impossible, torturous crush. He didn’t need a second or a third. He couldn’t afford to moon over Wynonna and Dolls like they were people he could have, people who might want him if he put in just a little bit more effort, if he opened his mouth and said something about it. They had each other. They had no need for him.

            Doc thought so hard he could barely breathe. He couldn’t breathe through the pounding sobs and the sound of his heart in his ears. With one last circle around his bedroom, he burst out of his room and headed over to Wyatt’s. He knocked mercilessly, feeling every bone in his body, ever nerve firing. He still didn’t know what he was doing. Was he going to spill it all? Tell Wyatt what a fucking idiot he’d been with Wynonna and Dolls? Or was he going to finally rip the cord? Tell Wyatt how he felt about him and let the cards fall where they may? Or was it going to be something else entirely, something unbidden and honest and that neither of them could predict?

            The door opened.

            Doc didn’t move. He couldn’t see through his blurred vision and panicked breathing. So when he felt Wyatt’s arm across his shoulders urging him forward, settling him down on the edge of the bed, he just went. He took the glass of water pressed into his hand and took a sip when prompted. Slowly, he began to hear Wyatt counting out his breaths and followed his careful guidance. When he could see again, Wyatt’s smiling face came into view.

            “Hey,” Wyatt said, soft. “You all right?”

            “Yeah, sorry. That hasn’t happened since...”

            “We moved in together?” Wyatt offered. He patted Doc on the shoulder and shifted to sit beside him on the mattress. “It’s okay. What prompted this one?”

            Doc shook his head. “Just thinking too much.”

            “Hmm. Thought we figured out a long time ago that I should do all the thinking.”

            Doc laughed.

            “Took you only ninety minutes to realize fucking the boss’ sister-in-law behind his back was a bad idea? I’d call that progress. We’ve cut your realization time in half.”

            “Fuck off.”

            Wyatt smiled and patted Doc’s back again. He was sitting so close, their thighs pressed together, and his fingers lingered on Doc’s spine. Doc fought against the beginning signs of arousal in his body, told himself that it didn’t mean to Wyatt what it meant to him. Wyatt just didn’t know how to act like a platonic friend. It was all right. Doc had dealt with it before. He’d deal with it again.

            “I should get back to bed,” Doc said.

            “Nah. Stay here tonight. In case I have to talk you down again.”

            Doc hesitated, his eyes on Wyatt’s. How did he tell his best friend that he desperately had to jack off before he crawled under the covers? The whole night had been designed to set him over the edge. First Jeremy in the club, dancing close and grinding against him. Then Wynonna, breathless on the phone, the image of her and Dolls writhing together, without him. And now Wyatt, sitting close, putting his hands on Doc, touching him like he wasn’t aware personal space was a thing.

            “Come on,” Wyatt said. “We’ve shared a bed before.”

            _When we were twelve,_ Doc thought and even that had been an adventure in tween hormones and bisexual awakenings. But he nodded all the same and crawled under the covers on the right side of the bed. He and Wyatt both slept on the left side normally, a sign he took from the universe that they weren’t meant to be together.

            Doc snuggled down in the bed and turned away from Wyatt. The light went off and he found himself struggling to breathe out of sync with Wyatt. Would Wyatt think it weird if they breathed at the same time? Would he even notice? Doc’s thoughts whirred at a mile a minute and he couldn’t slow them down, not even for a second, not even when he stopped thinking about Wyatt and turned his attention to Wynonna instead.

            A long and sleepless night followed. Doc lay half off the bed for most of the night, trying to avoid Wyatt’s restless kicks. He alternated between cursing his inability to say no to Wyatt and cursing himself for ever agreeing to move in with the man he loved. Around, seven a.m., he slipped out of bed and wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee. When he checked the clock, he let out a string of bad words under his breath. He’d been certain he’d lasted more than four hours.

            As he waited for the coffee to brew, he was hit with a burst of inspiration. Going to Wyatt had backfired. Going to Wyatt had always backfired. But that didn’t mean that Doc couldn’t have good luck with someone else.

            Someone else who was technically a client.

            And technically someone he shouldn’t have been able to contact.

            But Doc wasn’t an idiot and he knew it was better to keep his enemies close than at arm’s length. And Bobo was definitely an enemy. So even before he was asked to take Wynonna out, he’d known her name, her husband’s name, and where they lived. Their phone numbers, their likes and dislikes, their weaknesses. These were things he’d hidden when he’d met them, playing the friendly stranger as he had a million times before, but he never went into a meeting unprepared. And he never let Bobo’s family – even if the Earps were loathe to call him family – slide under his radar. He was smarter than that. He needed leverage with Bobo and his ability to get to his family quick was exactly the leverage he needed.

            Grabbing Wyatt’s keys from the counter, Doc left the apartment without drinking his coffee. He took the stairs down two at a time, hopped into the car, and drove all the way out to Wynonna and Dolls’ place in the middle of the suburbs. When he got there, it was a little before nine and the street was as empty as a horror movie set right before disaster strikes. Doc supposed he was the disaster in this case.

            He stopped his car in front of their house, straightened his jacket, and donned his hat. Clearing his throat, he walked up to the door and politely rang the doorbell. His heart was in his throat. He hadn’t thought of what he would say. Only sleep deprivation and the sting of Wyatt’s implied rejection had brought him that far.

            Wynonna opened the door in a green silk robe. She had tied it loosely, revealing the lacy white underwear underneath. When she saw Doc, she didn’t even blink. Didn’t shift to cover herself. Barely glanced his way before settling against the doorframe and taking a big bite of the apple in her hand.

            “Is Dolls here?” Doc said.

            “Why?” she said. “Did you wanna jack him off before work?”

            Doc opened his mouth to reply but no words came out.

            Wynonna clicked her tongue and leaned forward. “Afraid I beat ya too it.” With a smile, she stepped back into the house and gestured for him to follow her.

            Doc did so, shutting the door behind himself, suddenly sure he was in the wrong house. Yes, Wynonna was in front of him, traipsing into the kitchen in her little green robe, but she was humming a flowery tune. Somewhere deeper into the house, a baritone had joined in, the words murmured under his breath. The whole house had the air of somewhere happy, somewhere light and airy, somewhere that had both a husband and a wife in it all night long, not just for a few hours.

            “We stayed up all night,” Wynonna said. She went up on her tiptoes to kiss Dolls’ shoulder as she moved around him to the fridge. “Just talking, like we were freaking college kids with our first crushes. I’ve never had that cliché before.”

            “Congratulations,” Doc said, not sure what else he could offer.

            Dolls gestured to one of the stools at the counter. “Sit. Eat something.” He slid a plate of eggs, bacon, and pancakes in front of the stool. His wide smile seemed big enough to swallow Doc whole. “We want to talk to you.”

            “We talked about you a lot,” Wynonna confirmed. She slid onto the stool next to him and frowned. “But I didn’t call you.” She looked at Dolls. “Did you call him?”

            Dolls frowned. “I thought you did.”

            Both of them looked at Doc.

            Doc forced his friendliest smile and held up his hands in a mock surrender. “I had a hunch,” he said. “A feeling, let’s call it, and I made my way over here all on my lonesome.”

            “How’d you know where we live?” they asked simultaneously.

            “You’re not the only ones with resources.”

            They exchanged a glance, the kind of married people’s glance that Doc had always thought seemed cheesy or overdone in movies. But with them, that one glance spoke paragraphs. A tilt of Wynonna’s head meant one thing whereas a frown from Dolls meant another. Barely moving, barely expressing, they could have entire conversations with their eyes, like they’d worked together as partners for years. And maybe they had. Doc didn’t know their history, didn’t know how or when or why they’d gotten together. For all he knew, they had been coworkers long before they were lovers.

            “Fine,” Wynonna said.

            Dolls cleared his throat and began, “We wanted to talk to you about your... uh...”

            “Services?” she suggested.

            “Not sexual,” Dolls clarified, “because that’s _still illegal_.” – Wynonna made a face and shrugged but quickly went neutral when Dolls glanced her way – “But, you do offer escort services and we were thinking that... well...”

            “We like you,” Wynonna said. She nudged Doc in the ribs with a playful, hidden smile. “We wanna keep seeing you, maybe. See if it continues to improve our relationship. Hell, I might even owe Willa a birthday present this year.”

            Doc felt frozen in place, his smile plastered on his face. He knew it was his turn to say something – to agree, to disagree, to name a rate – but his heart had been swallowed up by a black hole at his feet. He’d expected to be the one talking. He’d expected to be able to tell them everything, anything, to finally spill his feelings like he never did with Wyatt. But no such luck. Once again, he was pushed into a position of second best and he needed to act the part or act out, no in between.

            Part of him wanted to stand and leave, say there’d been a misunderstanding and not really explain. But when he looked into Wynonna’s eyes, saw the worry sparkling behind her smile, saw the slight shake in the corners of her lips, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to be the reason her marriage fell apart, fell to pieces. Not when he could be the one to save her.

            “Okay,” he said and then quickly shovelled eggs into his mouth. Around the food, he said, “What were you thinking?”

            Wynonna and Dolls had another silent conversation. Wynonna shrugged. Dolls said, “Two dates each a week? Two or three hours. We’ll pay a retainer.”

            Doc almost laughed and told them on a cop’s salary and a bounty hunter’s wages there was no way in hell they could afford that. The only people who billed higher than hookers were lawyers and they fucked you sideways too. But then he remembered that Bobo didn’t know he was there, that no one knew he was there, and that he could charge whatever the hell he wanted.

            Still, he licked his lips and said, “That’s a tall order.”

            “What? You got a lot of regulars to take care of?” Wynona took the hat off his head and placed it over her red curls. “A lot of demand for a middle-aged cowboy?”

            Doc smiled. “You chose me, sweetheart.” He got to his feet and took the hat back. “I’ll send you a price estimate when I have one and we can work from there.” Before they could say anything else, he turned for the door, vividly aware that he’d eaten two bites of breakfast. But he couldn’t be in the house a second longer. He couldn’t be anywhere a second longer.

            Was there nowhere he could go where he wouldn’t run into someone he had awkward feelings for?


	6. Dolls

Dolls and Wynonna spent long hours wrapped up in each other’s arms. He couldn’t remember the last time their sex life had been so good, so fiery. Well, he could. It had been right when the damn broke, a few months after they’d met, when Wynonna’s botched grab for an arms dealer had gotten in the way of the _real_ police and their shouting match had taken a heated turn. But then it hadn’t been this. It hadn’t been him carefully tracing her ribs, pushing her hair back from her face, and whispering sweet compliments that made her smile even as gasps left her lips.

            He hated to credit Doc with the change but he had to. There was no secret he’d loosened up a bit because of him and Wynonna responded well to it. As the sun came up, Dolls watched Wynonna’s deep sleep and gently pulled her closer to him. She hummed but came nowhere close to waking up. Usually it took little more than a floorboard creak to wake her, but today she felt safe and warm and fatigued and Dolls was so happy to see her relaxed for once.

            He crept out of bed a few minutes later and started getting ready for work. Part of him dreaded getting into the office, having to answer questions about why he’d left the stakeout, what the emergency had been. He’d been trying, in the late hours of the night when he couldn’t sleep, to come up with a good lie. He couldn’t let them go after Wynonna again. Not now, not when things were going well and he didn’t feel justified having his coworkers bitch about her the way he wished he could.

            As he shrugged on a plaid shirt, he considered just telling them the truth: Wynonna had cheated on him. But that would only illicit more attacks to her character, more hatred, more questions of why on earth he had married a bounty hunter. And he knew – because he had tried and failed before – that he couldn’t explain it to them. He couldn’t explain the way Wynonna made him calm, how she made him laugh when nothing else could, how after years in the army and with the police, she was a sparkling beacon of all the rules he didn’t have to follow. She was her own kind of magic and even being near her was a blessing.

            He started making breakfast downstairs and when he was nearly done, Wynonna entered the room in turquoise lace panties and one of his old shirts. She’d tucked the grey fabric into the edge of her panties, just to show them off, but yawned like she hadn’t planned to look cute at all.

            “How’d the stakeout go?” she asked as she hopped up onto a stool.

            Dolls dropped an omelette in front of her and turned back to the stove. “A bust,” he said. “No shipment and no dealer.”

            “Bad information? Or did they move?”

            He shrugged as he came around the island to sit down next to her. Taking a bite of his omelette, he said, “We may never know.”

            Wynonna nodded and kept eating. She got halfway through the omelette before she said, “So, about tonight. The... thing tonight.”

            “The date?” Dolls said. “Doc?”

            She nodded and looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Who gets to go on that? I mean, how do we decide?”

            Dolls shrugged. “You go. I’ve probably got paperwork to finish anyways.”

            She looked at him for a long second, her expression quietly neutral. “You’re really okay with this, aren’t you? There’s no hidden jealousy or discomfort anywhere in your face.”

            He swallowed his eggs and met her eyes. “Do you want there to be?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Leaning forward, he kissed her hard and cupped the back of her neck with his hand. He pulled back after a long moment and held her eyes steady. “It’s not because I don’t care about you or I don’t love you. If there’s one thing you should never doubt, Wy, it’s that I love you.” He let his hand fall through the curls of her hair, fingers catching in small ringlets. “We made a deal. We decided we were okay with this. I’m not gonna back out of it.”

            Wynonna nodded and landed a small peck on his lips before turning back to her food. “Good.”

            Dolls took a moment going back to his own food. He wanted to push and prod and reassure her some more, but he knew better than to go after information once Wynonna had shut down. And she’d definitely shut down now. Instead, he asked, “Have you talked to Waverly lately?”

            “Radio silence,” Wynonna said. She checked her phone all the same. “She didn’t even text to see if you were okay.”

            “What?”

            “I called her when you weren’t home the other night.” She shook her head and offered a thin smile even as she continued to stare at her phone. Then, her fingers started to move quickly. “I’m just gonna tell her you’re all right. That we’re all right.”

            Dolls nodded but didn’t pry anymore. All he knew about the fallout with Waverly were the headlines – Wynonna had gotten drunk, Nicole had tried to help, shit went down. He said, “And Willa?”

            “Fuck Willa.”

            After finishing his breakfast, he slipped off the stool and kissed the top of Wynonna’s head. She wished him a good day – or at least that’s what he thought she’d said through her mouthful of eggs – and he went out the door.

            The drive to the police station was long and tedious but he managed it without breaking out the siren. Before he even dropped his keys on his desk, his partner, Eliza, turned around in her chair and said, “What was the emergency?”

            “Death in the family,” Dolls said, not even thinking. He flopped into his chair and fired up his computer, ignoring Eliza’s shocked silence.

            “I’m sorry,” she said, after a moment. “Who?”

            “Wy’s uncle.” Dolls was so glad he had work to pull up on his computer and didn’t have to look at her. Eliza had a second sense about when he was lying but it seemed to rely on his expressions. “Cancer. Long time coming. Not a surprise but she was really torn up about it.”

            “Well, give her my condolences.”

            Dolls stopped himself from snorting. Wynonna would get a laugh out of that and he made a mental note to make sure to tell her as he started to read through the current case file and the stakeout report. Scratching his chin, he went through the list of CIs and outside sources who knew that they were looking into the warehouse. None of them seemed likely to have tipped off the dealers but he couldn’t be sure without talking to them.

            An hour after he entered the office, he was out of it, driving around with Eliza to drop in on their CIs and try to shake out more information. The day dragged on. No one knew anything new; no one even seemed to know that the warehouse was a bust. Which meant, most likely, they had burned three or four CIs in the process of staking out a warehouse the cartel no longer used.

            Dolls cursed under his breath as he walked away from the bar where the last CI worked. He slammed the car door after himself and settled his hands heavily on the steering wheel. His fingers shook.

            “I can drive,” Eliza said, slipping into the passenger seat.

            He shook his head.

            They went back to the drawing board at the office, slowly piecing back together their entire case. Just before the hour hand ticked to five o’clock, Dolls got a call from Wynonna. He picked it up and said, “Hey, don’t wait for dinn—”

            “I was about to tell you the same thing,” Wynonna said. She sounded out of breath and rushed. The static buzz of her truck’s radio came through the line. “Animal abuser jumped bail in Saskatchewan. They think he’s headed our way. I’m gonna be gone ‘til late.”

            “Okay.”

            “You need to meet Doc. Eight o’clock, Drummer’s Bar on Sixth and Main.”

            Dolls hesitated a moment, then said, “Okay.”

            “Love you.” The line went dead.

            For a moment, Dolls stood staring at his blank phone screen.

            “All right?” Eliza said.

            He nodded and re-dedicated himself to the work, ignoring the burning feeling in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t dressed to see Dolls, wasn’t dressed to go to some downtown bar. And what if Doc didn’t want to see him? What if he’d been expecting Wynonna, all dolled up, and what he got was Dolls, dressed like Wynonna on a night in? But he couldn’t leave work to get changed, to shower, to throw on cologne. At best, he could leave work just in time to not be late.

            Pushing down his schoolgirl nerves, he focused on the case and where the new hideout might be. By seven thirty, there were no leads and he told Eliza he was heading home for the night. She smiled and said, “Things going better at home, then?”

            He smiled back but didn’t say a word. Sure, saying yes wouldn’t have been a lie, but somehow she’d have wheedled out his true destination and who he was going there with. And saying “I hired a prostitute to save my marriage” to a fellow cop definitely wasn’t going to go over well.

            With traffic, Dolls was fifteen minutes late getting to the bar. As he approached, he saw Doc leaning up against the brick wall, a cigarette perched between his lips and his face covered by the shadow of his hat.

            “Those things’ll kill you,” Dolls said.

            “Not fast enough,” Doc replied, looking up just enough to bring his face out of obscurity. He smiled when he saw Dolls – a sideways, smug smile that dropped Dolls’ stomach into his feet – and said, “Thought I was gonna see your better half tonight.”

            “She got a better offer.”

            “Another criminal?”

            “Animal abuser.”

            “Sure knows how to pick ‘em.”

            Dolls exhaled his laugh and looked at his feet. He could feel Doc’s eyes on him and it felt appreciative, like he hadn’t even noticed that Dolls was wearing the same jeans and plaid shirt he’d worn to work. Then Doc hooked a finger through Dolls’ belt loop and pulled him closer. Dolls met his eyes, curious and wary, and Doc’s smirk grew.

            “Come on,” Doc said. “Let’s go find somewhere to eat.”

            “We’re not going in?”

            Doc shook his head as he turned to walk down the street, his finger slipping out of the belt loop. But he brought his hand around Dolls’ body and kept it on the small of his back. “Drummer’s is for heavy drinkers who don’t mind loud music. You don’t seem the type.”

            “More Wynonna’s style.”

            “Hence the choice,” Doc said, “but nothing to fear. There’s a nice little place just around the corner that plays sports on the TVs and won’t ask any questions about two guys slipping into a nice, quiet booth together.” His tone was laced with suggestion as his hand crept lower. “Anyways, you don’t look like you’ve eaten all day.”

            “I had breakfast,” Dolls countered, not quite managing the biting tone he wanted.

            Doc smiled, humouring him. “Well, dinner’s obviously the next meal on the list.”

            “Shut up.”

            Doc pulled him closer, knocking their hips together. “What got you so riled up you skipped out on lunch?”

            Dolls sighed, let himself slump against Doc. “Big case going nowhere. We were supposed to get some big runners out of this stakeout on the weekend but... nothing. And now we don’t know who lied to us or who’s been burned.”

            Doc hummed. “Which warehouse?”

            “Why?”

            “Might know something. I run in those kind of circles.”

            Dolls bit his lip.

            “What? You not allowed to date your CIs?”

            “Yeah, I’d say that’s frowned upon.”

            Doc smiled and pushed Dolls down a nearby alley. Shoving him against the wall, Doc stepped in nice and close, his whiskey-laced breath warming Dolls’ face. The only part of Doc’s body touching him was the hand over his heart and the whiskers of his mustache but still Dolls could feel him everywhere. His head felt fuzzy, spinny, and he blamed it on the lack of food.

            “Call it a free tip,” Doc whispered, his voice low and sultry. “You can tell your superiors it came from an anonymous source, no payment necessary. Besides, you’re already paying me anyways.”

            Dolls snorted and forced himself to look away. He didn’t want to get lost in Doc’s eyes, not again, not when the guy so easily made him lose focus on all the things he cared about. “Why do you care?” Dolls said. “What do you get out of it?”

            “I get a date that’s not focused on his work all night,” Doc purred. “Thought I made it clear you were no fun if you don’t relax a little, detective.”

            Dolls nodded, trying to keep the smile off his lips and failing. He didn’t say anything though. At least not until Doc grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer, making his vision swim. He could see words on the tip of Doc’s tongue, hear exactly what he was going to say, so he cut him off with, “The Billings’ warehouse.”

            “Billings.” Doc’s grip loosened and he took a step back, frowning. “What department do you work in?”

            “Narcotics.” Dolls stepped forward, trying to meet Doc’s shifting eyes. “Why?”

            Doc shook his head. “Nothing. Never heard of it.”

            Dolls grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him forward. His fingers shook in the fabric but he did his best to ignore the tremor as he got right in Doc’s face. “If you know something, if you know _anything_ , and you don’t tell me, you would be obstructing justice and I would—”

            “Arrest me?” Doc said, no hint of humour in the words. “I think we both know you won’t do that, Dolls.”

            Dolls let go of him and took a step back. His teeth pressed hard into his bottom lip as he fought to get control of himself again, fought to stop his hands from shaking. He could feel Doc’s eyes on him the whole time, the easy curiosity in them as Dolls shoved his hands into his pockets. Without apologizing, without even acknowledging it, Dolls said, “What do you know about the Billings’ warehouse?”

            “It doesn’t run drugs, for one thing,” Doc said, guarded, wary.

            “Then what’s it run?”

            Doc met his eyes, his expression suddenly dead serious. “Girls. Young ones, too.”

            Dolls felt a chill run through his whole body, freezing his muscles in place even as his mind worked a mile a minute to put the pieces together. Had anyone actually told them there were drugs at the Billings’ warehouse? Had they actually mentioned heroine _specifically_ when asking their CIs for information? Or had they simply asked where the cartel operated out of, not caring what they were shipping, what they were bringing in, as long as they could take them down?

            “I... I have to go,” Dolls said. Even though the words came out clear, his feet didn’t move. “I need to... we need to...” He shook his head hard, not seeing anything, the shadows of the alley finally getting to him. He raised his hands to his head. “I need to fix this.”

            “Whoa.” Doc put a steadying hand on his shoulder and held him back from collapse. “You need food, Dolls. You need to fucking breathe for a second.”

            “There are young girls out there getting exploited and—”

            “And you are useless to them if you cannot stand,” Doc snapped. He pushed Dolls roughly and then wrapped an arm around his waist. “I’ll drive you back to the station but we’re picking up Chinese food on the way and you’re gonna eat a motherfucking lot of it.”

            Dolls wanted to protest but as long as the station was involved, he really couldn’t. He handed Doc his keys and let him go to a drive-thru for food and then head back to the station. The lights were low but people were still around, chattering and answering phone calls. The night shift guys didn’t know Dolls well enough to be concerned but he waved to them anyways, got Doc to let go of his waist as they settled into the small room where all the info on the case was.

            Dolls landed heavily on top of one of the tables and dug into the nearest carton of noodles as Doc approached the corkboards. From behind, Dolls could only notice Doc’s head moving from side to side. He didn’t know what he was looking at, what he was focusing on, what he saw. After a long few minutes, Doc said, softly, “You’ve got quite the start here.” He flicked a picture on the board and the whole thing rattled.

            “What do you know?” Dolls said.

            Doc shook his head. “Not a lot.”

            “If you’re lying—”

            “I’m not lying.” But Doc didn’t turn around and the tension in his shoulders didn’t fade.

            Dolls slurped more noodles and tried to catalogue everything he knew about Doc. There wasn’t much. What did he know about the guy other than that he had kissed his wife, given him a hand job in a bathroom, and made his living as a hooker?

            “Were you one of them?” Dolls said, soft.

            Doc turned his way. “What?”

            “The kids.” Dolls swallowed. “In that warehouse. Were you one of them?”

            Doc exhaled his laugh, a sad smile spreading across his features and wrinkling otherwise smooth skin. Taking a step towards Dolls, he said, “These men haven’t been around quite long enough for that, darlin’. Though I will agree that they’re not quite so partial to girls.”

            Dolls watched his eyes, the way they never quite met his own, and he felt his heart sink for an entirely new reason. What he had started as a suspect interrogation was quickly starting to feel like questioning a victim. The problem was getting Doc to trust him enough to let go of whatever fear kept him quiet, whatever loyalty he felt to these men.

            “This agency you work for,” Dolls began, trying to keep his voice even and casual, “how’s it work?”

            “Whaddya mean?”

            Dolls shrugged and flipped over a box of paper clips that had been left on the desk. His eyes wandered over the open files, the names of drug dealers and cartel leaders that they’d thought they had. He wouldn’t be surprised if all those names turned out to be useless now. “It’s a legit website, well made. Doesn’t seem like the type of thing sex traffickers put up. Too easy to trace back to the source.”

            “And yet you haven’t done it.”

            “Should I?”

            Doc’s eyes were hard to keep a hold of as he shrugged. “Do what you want.” He turned back to the corkboards and hummed for a moment. “You staked out Billings’ on the weekend?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Dark cars? Whole nine yards?”

            “We were set up in a building across the street. All unnecessary vehicles removed from the line of sight.”

            “Which line of sight?”

            “The one from the warehouse to the building.”

            Doc glanced at him over his shoulder and tapped on a picture. “This building?” he said. Dolls nodded and he continued, “This is _one_ of the Billings’ warehouses. The Billings’ Corp owns five warehouses in this area alone and if your so-called ‘unnecessary vehicles’ were visible from any one of them, you were made.”

            Dolls got to his feet, dropped the noodles, and came to stand beside Doc as he pointed out the other four warehouses in the picture. Dolls cursed under his breath. Not only had they messed up all on their own, but by going to see all their CIs the day after, they’d probably burned all of them themselves.

            “You should go,” Dolls said as he headed for the phone. “I gotta make some calls and transfer the case and...” He hesitated as he looked at Doc’s neutral expression. “Stay,” he said instead. “Please. I’ll... I’ll try to clear this up as quick as possible.”

            “Whatever you want.”

            Dolls hesitated a moment longer wanting to say something, anything, but he decided to leave it. If Wynonna had liked the guy because he reminded her of herself, then maybe leaving him alone was the best strategy. Dolls picked up the phone and started calling his CIs one by one, making sure they were safe, making sure they could get somewhere safe, offering police protection if necessary. He mostly got told to fuck right off.

            By the time it came to transfer the case, he stopped himself before he dialed the number. True, with no drug involvement the case had to go to vice, but his hand shook over the numbers. He’d call tomorrow.

            He glanced at the clock – just after eleven – and turned to Doc who sat amidst the food, picking at it here and there. Dolls walked over and placed a hand on Doc’s thigh. Doc looked up and met his eyes, looking more than a little lost. Dolls forced a smile. “Sorry that took a while.”

            “No worries.”

            On a whim, Dolls moved forward and planted a soft kiss on Doc’s lips. The other man barely responded so Dolls pulled away quick, wiped his lips as he stepped away. “Uh, thanks for the help,” Dolls said. He grabbed his jacket. “I’ll drop you at home?”

            “I doubt it’s on your way.”

            “I don’t mind. Really.” Dolls took Doc by the arm and helped him off the table. In near silence – their only words said just to fill the empty air – they got into the car and Dolls drove Doc back to his apartment. Before he left the car, Doc leaned back and planted a much rougher kiss on Dolls’ lips, like he didn’t quite know how to do soft, how to do unchallenged affection. Then he slipped into the night.

            Dolls didn’t let himself wait long. After all, Doc wasn’t supposed to be his concern. He was a grown man who knew what he was doing. But even the thought of leaving him alone made Dolls’ stomach curl.

            Dolls parked in the driveway seconds after Wynonna’s headlights went out. He jumped down from the cab of his truck and went around hers to open the door. She looked down at him with a smile. “Thought the date was only supposed to be three hours,” she chided. With his help, she jumped down to the ground and stepped right into his space. “Hope you didn’t get up to anything illegal.”

            “I’m clean as they come,” Dolls said, smiling. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Time got away from me. I took him back to the station.”

            “You arrested him?”

            “No. He was helping me with a case.”

            “You made him a CI?”

            “Unofficially.”

            “Wow.” Wynonna stepped away from him, a teasing smile on her lips. “You sure know how to show a guy a good time, don’t you? Go out for a date and end up interrogating him for information.” She shook her head as she backed towards the front door. “No wonder you had to marry me and not someone normal.”

            Dolls laughed and headed up the walk after her. “You know I’d never marry anyone normal.”

            She wrinkled her nose as she turned to unlock the front door. “Do I?”

            Dolls came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. As she struggled with the key, he laid kisses down the side of her neck. “Yeah, you do,” he whispered, pulling her tighter against him. “And if you don’t hurry up, I’m gonna prove it to you right here on this porch.”

            Wynonna chuckled and pushed the door open. “Wow, Doc really does get you going, doesn’t he?”

            Dolls smiled, soft, as she turned to face him with the glow of the hall lights behind her. With the warm halo, she looked like some kind of dark angel. Dirt smeared one of her cheeks and dried blood showed through a rip in her jacket. He reached for her arm and pushed up the sleeve to see the gash on her elbow.

            “It’s nothing,” she whispered, her eyes bright and steady as they met his.

            His fingers shook. “Let me take care of it,” he whispered, trying to swallow the unsteadiness of his voice. “Please. Let me take care of someone tonight.”

            She placed her palm against his cheek, hesitated, and then nodded. “All right.”

            Dolls shut the front door behind him and led her into the kitchen. Leaving her on a stool there, he went to the bathroom for the first aid kit and then back to her. Carefully, methodically, he cleaned the cut and pressed a clean square of gauze against the injury. He could feel her eyes on him the whole time, her gentle concern, the way she wanted to ask a million questions but held them back. He fought to keep his breathing steady, to not let the hitch in his breath become tears. When he dropped the tape, she took his shaky hands in hers and brought his fingers to her lips. She kissed each of his knuckles lightly.

            “Whatever happened,” she whispered, “whatever you learned, whatever you couldn’t stop, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault there are bad people in this world and it’s not your job to stop every bad thing from happening.”

            Dolls swallowed hard as he met her eyes. “I just thought there were some people I could save. I just thought...” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

            “You thought you could save him.”

            Dolls nodded.

            “The last person you wanted to save was me.”

            “Wy—”

            She cut him off with a kiss, her hands on his cheeks, her lips honey warm. When their lips parted, she didn’t move back, just let their foreheads rest together. “You’re a good man, Xavier Dolls. Better than I deserve.”

            He shook his head. “If it’s not my job to save everyone, then it’s not your job to carry all their sins.”

            She nodded.

            He kissed her forehead and took a step back. “There’s something else I have to do tonight, if you don’t mind. Just get some sleep and I’ll be up in an hour.”

            “Anything I can do to help?”

            “You still got the link Willa sent you?”

            Wynonna frowned but reached for her phone. She sent the link to Dolls and then followed him over to the computer as he opened the page. With her looking over his shoulder, Dolls started the tracking work he’d told Doc was “easy.” He regretted the choice of words as soon as he started in on the website’s layers of security.

            Wynonna squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe send it to the tech lab? Ask them to break it down for you?”

            He shook his head. “There’d be no way of explaining how I think this is connected to the case. I don’t even know if it is connected to the case. And besides, the moment I tell anyone the cartel we’re chasing is dealing in humans instead of drugs, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

            “Let me try.” She shoved him lightly and took the chair as he vacated it. Her fingers worked quickly over the keyboard but within a few minutes she was locked out. She cursed as she flopped back against the seat.

            “You know, there’s something else we could try.”

            “No.”

            “It’s our only shot.”

            Wynonna shook her head. “Nicole won’t do it. She won’t do me any favours.”

            Dolls bit his tongue. “Will she do me one?”

            “You can try.” Wynonna stood up and faced him. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, sadness leeching into her blue eyes. She shrugged. “I don’t really know what she thinks of me anymore. I haven’t... Ever since I told her I’d stay out of things, I haven’t spoken to her.”

            “When’d you tell her that?”

            “When I went and begged her to take Waves back.”

            Dolls stared at his wife for a long moment and then nodded. He wanted to ask her for the whole story, wanted to ask what she’d said, why she’d felt she was responsible, why Waverly blamed her if she’d gotten them back together. But he knew Wynonna at a breaking point, he knew her at the edge of a cliff. So he said, “Did you catch the animal abuser?”

            She shook her head. “Fucking Gary got in my way again. Asshole.”

            Dolls laughed and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her nose. “Better luck next time.”

            “Here’s hoping.”


	7. Wynonna

Wynonna woke to a warm but empty bed. As she rolled onto her side, she spotted a piece of paper in the sheets. No sweet note from Dolls – their relationship had outgrown that in a month – just a list of potential hackers she could call to get to the owner of the site. Sighing, she pulled herself out of bed and went to pick her phone off the floor. The first number went to voicemail and the second to an automated recording with ridiculous instructions she had no time for.

            Halfway through dialing the third number, she wondered if it was really worth it to deal with these assholes when Nicole could go through the proper channels and pop out a name faster. Not that Nicole would be willing to do her any favours.

            Wynonna dropped the phone onto the mattress and headed down to the kitchen. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and munched on it as she skimmed the newspaper headlines. If anything interesting popped up, she’d read it, but she mostly stuck to the comics and the useless letters to the editor.

            Around noon, she jumped in the shower and afterwards checked her phone again. There was a text from Dolls that said _broke down and asked Nicole_ followed by another text saying _she seemed fine_. And why wouldn’t she? She’d always liked Dolls more than Wynonna. Dolls was a cop, a real one, one with enough power and authority to pull her up through the ranks. Wynonna was nothing but trouble.

            There were no bail jumpers today or at least not any coming her way, so she spent the day going through her clothes, looking for something that would make her look pretty but still let her run. Not that she expected to have to run from Doc, she just liked the option. But as she pulled on dresses Waverly had bought her and skirts Dolls had begged her to wear to police events, she felt tired in her bones. She wanted, more than anything, just to sit down in front of the TV and eat popcorn with Dolls at her side. She wanted married bliss, Cheeto dust and whiskey, not first dates and butterflies in her stomach and fighting to look like anything but herself so someone else would like her.

            She let her curls drop out of her hands, ruining the bun she had been in the process of pinning up. Reaching for her phone, she expected to call Doc and tell him to take the night off. Instead, she got Dolls saying _bust. good cop bad cop?_ She smiled.

            Without hesitating, without even changing, she headed for her truck. She may have been wearing a magenta dress with sneakers, make-up half done and her hair a rat’s nest of unfinished hairstyles, but she’d never felt more powerful. When Dolls needed her, she felt the most like herself.

            She parked outside of Doc’s apartment and rung the bell incessantly, too rapidly for him to do anything other than let her in. When the door buzzed, she stepped through and took the steps up to the third floor. She knocked calmly on door 19, settled her weight onto one foot and fixed the door with her best no-nonsense expression.

            The door opened and Doc smiled at her. The kind of lazy, confident smile that made Wynonna’s toes buzz but she fought to keep control of the trembling in her stomach. He kept the door barely open but leaned against the frame like he had nothing to hide. “Why, Miss Earp,” he said. “What an unexpected pleasure. I thought I wouldn’t see you until much later.”

            “Plans change, Doc.” She smiled. “My husband says you’re proving mighty hard to look in to. And you know Dolls, he doesn’t like to do anyone he can’t thoroughly vet first.”

            Doc’s smile dampened but didn’t disappear. “Don’t tell me you’re the same way, darlin’.”

            Wynonna shook her head and pushed the door. It slid from Doc’s grasp easily and she stepped in without an invitation, looked around the small white space. Every surface was covered with unwashed kitchenware, the floor littered with dirty laundry, and the walls didn’t have so much as a poster on them. “Homey,” she said.

            “Now’s not really a good time.”

            “Why? Got a hot date?”

            “Wynonna—”

            She held up a hand to silence him as she turned around to look him in the eye. Even with the height difference, he didn’t come close to intimidating her. Something about the lost-in-the-past cowboy look had him seeming gentle, soft, like he wouldn’t so much as hurt a fly. “Doc,” she said calmly, “Dolls needs to know who you are. He needs to know who you work for. And, as you probably know, the security on your little website is better than NASA’s.”

            “I did not know that.”

            “Sure you didn’t.” She took a step closer and looked up at him, eyes shining. She rubbed the collar of his shirt between her fingers. “You just work there, after all, don’t set up the website.”

            “That’s right.”

            “But you do know who runs the site, right? Who your pimp is?”

            “Why? Is your lovely husband planning on arresting him?”

            Wynonna shrugged. “Not quite sure what he’s after, to tell you the truth.”

            “I’ll tell you.” Doc took her elbow as if to push her off but then didn’t. He just brushed his thumb over the skin of her elbow, his eyes dropping to her lips. “He thinks I was just a kid when I got into this business. That maybe I work for the same people who are laundering girls through his city. So he wants to know their names, get in close, and make me flip on them.”

            “And you don’t work for those people?”

            “I didn’t say that.”

            “But you wouldn’t flip on them either way.”

            Doc shook his head.

            Wynonna reached up to caress his cheek, was surprised by how easily he leaned into her touch. Her heart skipped a beat at the warmth of his skin, the closeness of his body, like he could be her safety net. She swallowed hard. “Are you afraid of them?”

            Doc chuckled lightly. “I’m not afraid of anyone.”

            “Then why not give them up?”

            “Because I’m no snitch,” he said. “Because I have a living to make.”

            Wynonna hummed. “You seem to be doing okay. What with getting our money under the table and all.”

            Doc snorted and finally stepped back, his eyes dropping from hers, his entire body closing off. She stepped after him, tried to catch him, but he slipped away like water running through her fingertips. He settled against the wall, leaning back enough to be at her height, and looked at her with glassy eyes.

            “You should go. I’ll see you tonight.”

            “I’m here now.” Wynonna stepped forward, watching him like a spooked horse. “Why wait?”

            “Believe it or not, I have another life.”

            “A real one?”

            He took her hands as she stepped closer and squeezed her fingers tight. Something in his eyes, something searching, made her ache to step forward and kiss him, kiss all the worries right out of him. Looking at him was like looking into a mirror. In another life, in another time, she might have been exactly like him. Constantly getting into trouble until she grew old and tired from it, caring too much about people who only pretended to care about her, trying to juggle two completely separate lives. Sometimes she still felt like that. Sometimes she still felt torn in two.

            “A real one,” he agreed and brought her hands up to kiss her knuckles.

            She fell towards him, bringing their hands down and connecting their lips. It was nothing like before. It wasn’t wild passion or reckless abandon. It was lips pressing together, soft sweetness, the taste of whiskey on his breath. It was pulling him closer, letting his arms wrap around her waist, not daring to deepen the kiss in case she shattered the moment. She let her fingers tangle in the back of his hair, let them both breathe in between every press of their lips.

            Just when he pulled her closer, brought their bodies flush together, and Wynonna stopped thinking about breaking him, a key rattled in the door. Their kiss broke and she stumbled back as Doc moved away from the wall. He wiped at his lips and tried to smooth down his hair. She quickly did the same, trying hard to readjust the too-small dress that had hiked up even from the barest of movements.

            Doc stood still in the kitchen for a moment watching the door. And then, realizing it must have looked fucking weird for them both to just be standing there, he grabbed Wynonna around the waist and planted her on the couch. He handed her a mug that was filled with something brown and said, “Don’t drink that.” Then, with a last brush of his hand through his hair, he stepped towards the door as if he’d been meaning to open it all along.

            “Damn it, Doc,” a man said, stepping through the now open door. “How many times do I gotta try the key before you open it yourself?”

            “I was busy,” Doc said. He stepped out of the man’s way smoothly, watched him walk into the kitchen.

            Wynonna watched both of them as they danced around each other. They seemed to know each other so well that they knew exactly where the other would walk, where they would stand, what they would say. Their responses were so fast, so smooth, that it was like they’d had the exact same conversation a million times before. She wondered if this was what long-term relationships looked like when they weren’t marriages. In marriage, you had an ease of touching each other, of brushing past, of working together. These two had an ease of avoiding each other, of giving wide berths, of working separately in the same space.

            “Who’s the girl?” he asked finally.

            Doc glanced over his shoulder like he’d completely forgotten Wynonna was there. She tried to read the glassiness in his eyes, the fog that had come down behind them. He shrugged and turned back. “A client.”

            “A client? You know you’re not supposed to bring fucking clients to our house, Doc.”

            “She can hear you, Wyatt.”

            Wyatt tossed a mug in the sink and it shattered. He stepped up to Doc, leaving a good amount of room between them, and stopped blinking. “You think I give a crap? You can’t have clients in the apartment. You fucking know that. Besides, Jeremy will be here in twenty minutes. Who are you gonna say she is then?”

            Doc sighed. “I don’t know. Your newest fuck?” He turned away before Wyatt could respond and when he looked at Wynonna, his expression was tired and bored. He offered Wynonna a hand and she took it, letting him haul her to her feet. “Sorry, darlin’, ol’ Wyatt here doesn’t know how to treat a lady.”

            “It’s all right,” Wynonna said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. She tried to seem like she was looking at Doc even as she sized Wyatt up. “I rarely consider myself a lady.”

            Wyatt snorted. “I wouldn’t with that wedding ring on your finger.”

            Wynonna let her pleasant expression drop and flipped him off. “You’re one to talk,” she said. “How many girls do you fuck in a day? How many of them do you think like it? Because, let’s face it, you look like the type of guy they’ve gotta fake it for.”

            Wyatt took a step forward and Doc grabbed Wynonna’s shoulders to pull her back.

            “Whoa, hey,” Doc said, stepping in between them. “No need to get all hostile here. She was just leaving.”

            “Good riddance,” Wyatt said.

            “At least I’m better company than you.” Realizing she was still holding the mug of brown sludge, Wynonna lobbed it into the sink and got a spark of wild pleasure when its crash made Wyatt flinch. She smirked at him as Doc led her to the door by the waist, carefully trying to keep her out of Wyatt’s way.

            Before he could push her into the hallway, Wynonna turned in Doc’s arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed Doc hard on the lips, sloppy, and pulled him close. When she let go, she winked and said, “Show the asshole what he’s missing.” Then she tapped him on the ass and stepped out into the hall.

            The door closed but it didn’t completely muffle the sounds of their argument. She sighed. Pulling out her phone, she started down the hall, intent on texting Dolls that she had gotten nowhere at all. But had she? She knew that Doc didn’t want to rat out his employers. She knew he didn’t deny that they were involved in human trafficking. And she knew that his roommate, Wyatt, was also a hooker, probably for the same pimp. She wrote all this out and texted it to Dolls, who quickly wrote back _describe him_.

            Wynonna gave him a clear description of Wyatt – like Doc but brunette, tan, a little younger maybe but with clearer wrinkles, a rougher attitude, and a scar splitting his mouth a little far into his cheek – and waited. Dolls sent a picture back, a picture of Wyatt. When Wynonna confirmed that was him, Dolls told her to come into the station.

            She had a hundred questions but it’d be easier to talk to Dolls in person. At the bottom floor, she stepped off the elevator and ran right into a dark-skinned boy also looking at his phone. He looked up with a bright smile, apologized, and let her pass without anymore questioning. Wynonna frowned, thinking of the name _Jeremy_ and wondering if this was the type of guy Doc was really into.

            When she got to the station, she headed straight for Dolls’ desk and there was directed to the room he’d commandeered for the case. Eliza stood in front of a board filled with pictures of shipments going in and out of the different Billings’ warehouses. She tapped a pen against her lip.

            “Hey,” Wynonna said. “Is Dolls here?”

            Eliza glanced over her shoulder. “We’re a little busy.”

            Wynonna bristled but tried not to let any venom enter her voice. After all, she wasn’t exactly dressed to impress. “He asked me to help,” she said. “You know, help, that thing I give you sometimes that breaks all your harder cases?”

            Strong hands came down on her shoulders and she felt Dolls’ lips press into the top of her head. “Sorry,” he said. “Wy hasn’t quite readjusted to normal society.”

            “Fuck you,” she said, turning to face him.

            He pecked her on the lips, the lightest of apologies, and then led her over to a table filled with mug shots. He pointed out Wyatt, a few years younger and without the scar. “He was brought in for dealing seven years ago. Got out of it on a technicality. And look who paid his original bail.”

            Wynonna put her fingers over Doc’s name on the page. She looked up at Dolls. “So? They’re roommates. Old friends from what it looked like.”

            Dolls flipped the page again to show a different arrest, this time with two names attached to it. Wyatt and Doc. From the report, it looked like Wyatt had been dealing and Doc had simply been his lookout.

            “The bail?” Wynonna prompted.

            Dolls swallowed hard, his finger twitching against the page.

            Wynonna didn’t let him get away with it. She flipped the page herself and scanned the page for the name, the name he didn’t want her to see. When she saw it, her heart jumped into her throat, pounding hard. She met Dolls’ eyes again.

            “It might not mean anything.”

            “Bullshit.” Wynonna hated the way her voice shook. “How could it not mean anything?”

            Dolls sighed. “We’ll call her in, see what she has to say.”

            “No. It’s not her. You know it’s not her.”

            “She might be an accessory.”

            “Fuck calling her an accessory.” Wynonna stood, sending the chair clattering backwards. She was all too aware that she was shaking, that she was yelling, that Eliza was looking their way. She crossed her arms tight against her chest and forced herself to lower her voice. “Willa didn’t do this. You know that. If her name is there, if she’s involved, it’s because Bobo made her do it.”

            Dolls licked his lips and nodded. “Of course. And when she admits to being a victim, we can give her immunity. But for right now—”

            “A victim?”

            “Doc said the cartel, maybe the people he works for, traffic underage girls.” Dolls swallowed hard and Wynonna watched his Adam’s apple bob, barely hearing him. “We know Willa got involved with Bobo young, too young, and it’s very possible that he—”

            “No.” Wynonna shook her head.

            “We have to admit the possibility.”

            She shook her head again.

            “I’m sorry.”

            She licked her lips and took a shaky breath. Opening her mouth, she had words she wanted to say but couldn’t force them out. Couldn’t make herself say Willa wouldn’t, Willa would never, because she didn’t know that to be true. The Willa she’d known – her brave older sister – would never have gotten involved with Bobo at all. But then their dad had died, Willa had ran away, and she’d turned up years later with a boyfriend who screamed daddy issues. And Wynonna had never been able to stop blaming herself.

            Dolls stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Wynonna let herself surrender to his touch, to his warmth. There was nothing else she could do. As the first tears squeezed out of her eyes, he brushed a hand through her hair and whispered, “We’re gonna get this bastard. We’re finally gonna nail him to the wall.”


	8. Doc

Doc tuned out Wyatt’s lecture on not letting clients know where they live twenty minutes in. That, of course, did not stop Wyatt from going on about it for another hour even with Jeremy in the room. Doc spent the time with his hand on his boyfriend’s knee, his eyes lazily sliding from Wyatt to the local news on the TV to Jeremy’s fingers curled in his.

            When Wyatt stopped to breathe, Doc made it very clear he was done with the conversation. He made it very clear by tilting Jeremy’s lips to his and pulling the younger man into his lap. Jeremy went with a soft grunt and a giggle, his lips soft and pliable. Wyatt left the room muttering something that was surely homophobic but Doc couldn’t be bothered to care.

            Another hour passed like that, lazy kisses and Doc failing to get hard despite Jeremy’s best efforts. Doc groaned in frustration and rolled Jeremy off him. He ran a hand through his hair, letting the long strands fall back into his eyes.

            Jeremy eyed him, concerned. “Everything all right?”

            “Just peachy.” Doc got off the couch and went for the kitchen. He opened the first bottle he found – some cheap schnapps Wyatt had bought to impress a college girl – and took a long swig. The sweetness burned all the way down, artificial peach flavouring coating his teeth. Swirling the bottle, Doc looked back at Jeremy with narrowed eyes. “You do something with computers, right?”

            Jeremy looked momentarily hurt, just a flash of pain, but he hid it well. Not so well that Doc didn’t immediately feel like shit though. Jeremy nodded and said, “I’m a firewall tester. Company’s pay me to hack in and find the weak points in their security.”

            “What if I had a job for you?”

            “You own a business you want me to hack?”

            “Something like that.”

            Jeremy eyed him for a second. “You know we’re not actually close enough for you to ask me to do anything illegal, right?”

            Doc snorted and put down the bottle. “I suppose that’s true.” He walked back to Jeremy and tilted his chin up so the other man was looking at him. Doc put on his most charming smile and lowered his voice to a whisper. “But there are things I can do for you that other people just can’t.” He ran his fingers through the short curls of Jeremy’s hair and almost lost focus. He blinked and was back. “And all I’m asking for you to do is check who owns a website. Should be easy, right?”

            “Depends on the site.”

            “But you can get in and out? Without being detected?”

            “Unless it’s the freaking pentagon, most likely.”

            Doc’s smile widened. “It’s not the freaking pentagon.”

            Jeremy sighed. “Fine. But I’m doing it on your laptop and from your apartment so they can’t trace it back to me.”

            Doc shrugged and stepped back, letting his fingers tickle across Jeremy’s jaw line as he moved. A short search turned up Wyatt’s laptop and with a few clicks, Doc got Jeremy to the homepage of Bobo’s hooker agency. He knew what the search would turn up. Probably didn’t even need Jeremy to confirm it. But he had a sneaking suspicion that whatever was behind the curtains was something he wouldn’t like, something Wynonna and Dolls wouldn’t like, and he wanted to be a step ahead of it if he could.

            Patting Jeremy on the shoulder, Doc said, “Print out the results as proof. I gotta go.”

            “A client?”

            Doc smirked and tipped his hat before heading out the door. He checked his watch as he went and immediately picked up the pace. He was already late and, with travel time, he’d be even later. The back of his mind reminded him he could call, tell Wynonna he had been delayed, but his phone was somewhere under the mess of clothes in his apartment.

            When he got to the bar and Wynonna wasn’t there, inside or outside, he took his chances waiting by the door. Tapping his foot, his mind searched through all the reasons she might have shown up and not waited for him. There could be lots of reasons. Wynonna didn’t seem like the type of girl who liked to be kept waiting.

            Two hours later and with nothing better to do, Doc left the bar and jumped on the LRT. He realized, too late, he was headed away from his apartment. Oddly, there was no jump of fear in his chest, no annoyance, and he didn’t get off right away. Instead, he rode it out and got off when it felt right, following his instincts like a police dog on a trail.

            As soon as he got off, he recognized the neighbourhood. The neatly trimmed bushes, the picket fences, the two story houses with bright windows. A breeze wandered through the roads, making Doc pull his jacket close as he walked, each step a little heavier than the next. A little voice in his head told him this was a bad idea. Perhaps if he’d had his phone on him, he’d have gotten a call cancelling the date. Maybe a call cancelling the whole thing. After all, Dolls and Wynonna seemed to be doing better. Maybe they didn’t need him anymore.

            On their front porch, Doc hesitated. He rested his thumb over the doorbell as he looked in the window. The front hall was empty but lightly lit from the warm glow of lights further in. He felt his heart skip a beat in his chest, stutter, like it was thinking of giving up. Even if it took him a moment to admit it, everything he’d ever wanted was behind that door. A fiery woman with more heart than she knew what to do with. A gentle man who played everything by the book. A happy family that he wasn’t even close to being a part of.

            Taking a deep breath, he pressed down on the doorbell. After all, no one had ever accused Doc of being selfless.

            Dolls came down the hallway, his footsteps lazy with the late hour. He rubbed his eyes as he opened the door and only caught sight of Doc once he lowered his hand. “Shit,” he said, but there was no venom in the word. “We didn’t call, did we?”

            Doc shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. I lost my phone.”

            “Sorry,” Dolls said. He held onto the door and leaned against it. “Wy wasn’t quite feeling up for it. We got some... weird news today and she’s...” He looked back over his shoulder like he could see her down the hall, the edge of a smile playing on his lips. He shrugged. “She’s doing okay now. Nothing junk food couldn’t fix.”

            Doc nodded. “She’s a strong girl.”

            “Yeah.” Dolls hesitated a moment longer and then said, “Why don’t you come in? We’re about to start _The Blair Witch Project_.”

            Doc raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a horror movie man.”

            “Yeah, well, they give me nightmares but Wy finds them unendingly hilarious.” Dolls stepped back further, silently inviting Doc to follow him. When Doc did, closing the door behind him, Dolls turned and called, “Hey, Wy. Put on _The Covenant_ instead. For our guest.”

            “Guest? It’s almost midnight.”

            Doc rounded the corner to see Wynonna in the middle of a grey-blue couch. She was cocooned in at least three knit blankets, wrapped so tight he couldn’t tell what she was wearing other than the fluffy black socks that stuck out on top of the coffee table. She had half a sour gummy worm in her mouth, the other end stretched out far in an attempt to break it. The moment her eyes met Doc’s, her easy animosity softened, and she said, “Hey.”

            “Hey, darlin’.” Doc shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the back of an armchair. “How are you feeling?”

            “Like a thirty year-old who just ate five pounds of sugar.” She shook her head at him when he started to sit in the armchair and patted the space on her left. “If we’re watching _The Covenant,_ you need to stay close.”

            “Dolls said you don’t scare easy.” Doc made his way over to her all the same and settled as she lifted her blankets to let him in. He looked up at Dolls who was watching them both with a laughing smile on his face, pure affection in his eyes. Doc glanced back at Wynonna. “Is this movie the exception?”

            “This movie is balls,” Wynonna said. She looked up at Dolls, annoyed, and raised the blankets on her other side. He walked over and flopped down next to her, snuggling in close and resting his head on the back of the couch cushions. Looking back at Doc, she said, “But there are spiders crawling into people’s mouths and that’s pretty fucking nasty.”

            Doc laughed. “I suppose.”

            Wynonna hit a button on the remote and a fiery title screen roared to life. Subtitles came up on the screen as Wynonna reached forward to grab a bowl of popcorn. She settled it into Doc’s lap and then reached for a second bowl filled with various sour candies to place in Dolls’ lap. With a sigh, she flopped back onto the cushions and said, “It’s good to have side tables.”

            Dolls laughed. “Love you too.”

            She turned to peck him on the lips and Doc was struck with the odd cold of knowing he shouldn’t be there. And yet, when he thought about moving, when he thought about potentially shifting away and making an excuse, his heart fell right out of his chest. Then Wynonna reached for the popcorn in his lap, nearly missed, and said, “Come closer. I’m not fucking diseased.”

            Doc shifted and then let her pull him right up next to her. So close, he could see the faded tear tracks on her cheeks and the dull quality to her usually electric eyes. He wondered what she could have found out that had shaken her. He wondered what it was that could make a fearless, fiery woman break. And he vowed that he would do anything, everything, to help her fight against such things in the future.


	9. Dolls

Dolls walked around the front of the couch and slapped Doc lightly on the knee. Doc grumbled but didn’t wake. Sighing, Dolls picked the last of the trash off the coffee table and shoved Doc’s feet off it at the same time. Doc startled awake, looking around wildly to see where he was.

            “Nice of you to join the land of the living,” Dolls said, letting himself smile at the sleepy way Doc met his eyes before he turned away to chuck the candy wrappers in the trash. When he came back, he sat down on the coffee table across from Doc. “You want any breakfast?”

            “Uh,” Doc started. He cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes as he struggled to sit upright.

            “Hungover?”

            “You got strong whiskey.”

            “Yeah, whiskey I’d managed to keep Wynonna out of before you came over.”

            Doc looked almost apologetic. Almost. And it still melted the last of Dolls’ annoyance. With a smile, Doc said, “Speaking of the lady of the house, where might she be?”

            “She got a call around five. Teenager jumped bail. Apparently took a horse down the highway for a while.”

            “That gives her what? Three, four hours of sleep?”

            Dolls shrugged. “It was her or Geoff. And she doesn’t like leaving the teenagers to Geoff.” He paused as Doc nodded and, when nothing more was forthcoming, he prompted, “Breakfast?”

            “Don’t you have work?”

            “You trying to get rid of me?”

            “Trying to figure out if you don’t trust me alone in your house.”

            Dolls snorted and got to his feet. “Do I trust a hooker I’ve met three times alone in my house?” He hummed as he headed towards the kitchen waiting until he heard the telltale signs of Doc following before letting the sound trail off. As he fired up the stove, he glanced over his shoulder and said, “It’s got nothing to do with you. I thought I might get some work done from home. Go through some case files. Do some paperwork.”

            “Delay handing the case over to vice?” Doc sat down heavily on one of the stools and picked up an apple. When he bit into it, juice dribbled onto his chin.

            Dolls shrugged. “I’ve got Nicole on it. Hopefully she’ll come to see that a joint narcotics/vice task force would be the best fit given the situation.”

            “The situation where there’s no drugs?”

            Dolls bit down on his bottom lip and focused on the eggs he cracked into the pan. His brain whirred trying to figure out a way to make Doc less suspicious of him and his intentions. Sure, there were a million ways to convince him he wasn’t a key to the case, to convince him that he had everything he needed all on his own, but Dolls didn’t want to trick him. He remembered what Wynonna had been like the first time he’d pulled that – her screaming, the tears she’d pretended weren’t there, the week long silence – and he didn’t know if he could handle it again.

            He turned down the heat on the stove and turned to face Doc. “I have access to you. Nicole doesn’t.” He searched Doc’s face but could find nothing out of the ordinary in his blank expression, in his curt nod. “If you can tell me anything—”    

            “Is this the second round of your little good cop/bad cop routine?” Doc said, one eyebrow raised.

            Dolls smiled in spite of himself. “Depends. Who’s the good cop?”

            “I’d say you, if only because your wife lacks subtlety.”

            “Yeah, Wy’s a straight shooter.”

            Doc met his eyes steadily. “I like that about her.”

            “So do I.” Dolls found his voice uncharacteristically soft, his eyes falling to Doc’s lips. He shook himself slightly and turned back to the food. “She’s a lot more delicate than she looks.”

            “Oh, I wouldn’t call a damn thing about that girl delicate.”

            “Well, if you wanna keep all your fingers, that’s probably a good call.”

            There was a brief moment of silence, only the popping of the stove filling the room. Dolls searched for something to say, something else to ask, but he couldn’t find the words, didn’t know what his angle was. Before he could decide, Doc said, “I have someone looking into the website. Should be able to tell you who owns it pretty soon.”

            Dolls glanced over his shoulder but Doc was looking down at his hands as if examining them for blood. Dolls nodded and tried not to sound too pleased. “Let me know,” he said. He turned off the burner and dumped scrambled eggs onto two plates. He slid one in front of Doc and then leaned against the counter across from him. Doc took a big bite, still not looking up.

            “You know the info that shook Wynonna last night?” Dolls said. “The reason she stood you up?”

            Doc mumbled his assent.

            Dolls wanted to see his face when he let Willa’s name slip. He wanted to see Doc’s eyes, be sure that Doc was telling him the truth. So he reached out and pulled specks of egg from Doc’s mustache, earning a curious, soft look from the other man. And Dolls’ resolve almost failed, his learned tricks feeling silly and cheap in the face of such an honest man.

            “We found out her sister, Willa, might be involved.”

            Doc’s eyes didn’t even move. Dolls removed his hand, going back to his own eggs, watching Doc out of the corner of his eye. Doc just stared for a long moment before putting down his fork and saying, “What do you know?”

            Dolls shrugged. “I know the cartel traffics underage girls. I know you know their business. I know Willa bailed you out of jail once. You and your friend Wyatt.” Doc looked ready to run, his foot tapping against the base of the stool, so Dolls reached out and took his hand. But the moment Doc looked up at him with fiery eyes, Dolls dropped all the crap on his lips about protecting him. Instead, he said, “I know Willa ran away from home when she was twelve years old and showed up again with a thirty year-old boyfriend in tow when she was just seventeen.”

            “Bobo,” Doc said, his voice sharp and soft all at once.

            Dolls nodded. “We’ve been trying to nail Bobo for years. For anything. But Willa won’t flip on him and he swears up and down he never touched her until she was legal.”

            Doc hummed but said nothing.

            “What do you know?”

            “I know I’m not a snitch.” Doc shoved his stool back and got to his feet. His blue eyes, cold as ice, met Dolls’. “If you’ll just pay me what I’m owed, I’ll get out of your hair.”

            Dolls licked his lips. “What if I pay you more and you stay for a little while?”

            “You lookin’ for something illegal now, detective?”

            Dolls shook his head, trying not to let his jaw tighten, trying not to let Doc get to him. He remembered, almost by accident, Doc’s fingers carding through Wynonna’s curls as she leaned onto his shoulder. He remembered their quiet whiskey drunkeness, the whispers that had passed between them like shouts, the feeling that he should be jealous. He _should_ be jealous that his wife looked at this man like he was made of stars and fireworks. But instead all he felt was a quiet calm, a deep relief that happiness could be found between them, bright like the warm glow from a fireplace.

            Dolls knocked his knuckles against the counter and focused on Doc’s cold stare, wondering how hard it would be to get back the soft looks from that morning, wondering if all Doc’s soft looks were maybe reserved for Wynonna. And while that thought still didn’t make him jealous, it hit a deep sadness in his veins, the kind he couldn’t quite explain, even when his therapist picked at it for an hour straight.

            “No,” Dolls said finally. “No. I just... I could use the company.”

            “Go to work, then.”

            “Not that kind of company.”

            Doc gave him a pitying look. “It’s illegal whether you admit it or not.”

            Dolls rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine. Whatever. You wanna leave, at least let me give you a ride. Transit must’ve taken you over an hour last night.”

            Doc shrugged. “Didn’t really think about it.”

            “Finish your breakfast,” Dolls said, seeing the cracks in Doc’s armour. He walked back to the counter himself and stabbed some eggs onto his fork. He chewed. He waited.

            After a long minute, Doc came back to his food and started to eat. Dolls let the silence fall, let it reign, because he couldn’t think of the right words to say or anything he might want to say. He barely knew the man across from him and the things he did know came from glimpsed police reports and interpreting words Doc hadn’t even said. Wynonna knew him. Wynonna knew him from drinking games in a hotel room. That wasn’t exactly something Dolls could go ahead and suggest.

            Dolls took the empty dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. When he turned back, he saw Doc watching him curiously, letting his eyes wander over his frame, completely unaware of how far gone he looked. Dolls waited for Doc to meet his eyes again and, when he did, there wasn’t a trace of embarrassment in his expression.

            “Tell me,” Doc said, “how’s someone like you, someone neat and tidy and by the book, end up with someone as wild as your wife?”

            Dolls shrugged, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. “Things happen.”

            Doc got up and followed him into the living room. “True. But I got the sense the thing she liked the least about you was how you’re always holding her back, how you make her play by the rules. But that can’t really be a new thing, can it?”

            Dolls tried not to let his hands tighten into fists. “No. It’s not.”

            Doc flopped down onto the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table and blocked Dolls path. Dolls looked down at him, his fingernails dug into his palms, and Doc looked back, lazy and unaware of what he was playing at.

            “Tell me, then. What’d she see in you?”

            “She loves me.”

            “Why?”

            Dolls bit the inside of his cheek. He could feel his old anger rising up in him, the feeling that made the world go red, and it put pressure on his eyes like a dam about to burst. With a deep sigh, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe she’s not the person you think she is. Maybe she’s not this fearless badass that she pretends to be for absolutely everyone else. Maybe she’s just human and maybe that’s okay. Maybe I make her feel like it’s okay to be human.”

            Doc nodded and grabbed Dolls’ arm. With a slight tug, he pulled him down onto the couch beside him and Dolls went like a sack of potatoes. He stared down at his hands, saw his fingers trembling even as Doc closed a hand around them, squeezing tight.

            “She’s lucky to have you,” Doc whispered.

            Dolls turned his head to look at him, to see the earnest, open look in his eyes. Dolls shook his head. “I’m lucky to have her. I’d be lucky even if she decided to leave me tomorrow.”

            “She’s not gonna leave you,” Doc said. “She needs you too much for that.”

            Dolls leaned in slightly. Their noses brushed together and he heard Doc’s breath hitch. His lips, just inches away, quivered. Dolls said, “What about you?” His voice was soft, too soft. “Wy tells me you have a boyfriend half your age.”

            Doc chuckled and pulled away. “Long story.”

            “I have time.”

            Doc shook his head.

            “I’ll tell you the whole story,” Dolls said. “Start to finish. The day I met Wynonna to right now.” He slapped Doc playfully on the leg. “Come on. All that just for telling me about your boyfriend. And maybe your roommate too.”

            “Wyatt?” Doc gave him a curious, guarded look. “Why?”

            Dolls shrugged. “Wynonna said there was something weird there. Something like maybe you’re hiding something from him. Something big.”

            “Your wife’s pretty damn perceptive.”

            “I haven’t managed to hide a thing from her since I met her.”

            Doc snorted and his eyes fell to his feet. “My boyfriend, Jeremy,” he began, “came up to me in a club one night, no clue who I was or why I was there. And for a while, he was just fun. Still is, I guess. But he wanted more right up until the day he found out what I did for a living and now he’s fine with just casual.”

            “Are you?” Dolls said.

            Doc smirked. “He’s half my age. I’m not about to marry him.”

            “And Wyatt?”

            The smile faded from his face.

            Dolls settled back on the couch, searching for the right words not to spook him. It was hard to think words were even necessary in the heavy silence that spoke so much more than Doc probably wanted to say. Dolls heart ached with it, ached with the knowledge that Doc was so far gone for this guy who, according to Wynonna, was a real asswipe. Dolls was on the verge of saying something, of saying anything, when Doc spoke.

            “Bobo saved my life, you know.” Doc picked at a strip of dead skin along his thumb that seemed to be covering a freshly healed cut. “I’d grown up in a foster home with parents that never really cared about me. Didn’t beat me or anything, just didn’t really care. And when I looked for my birth mother, well, she cared even less. Bobo was the first person I met who seemed to give a shit, I guess.”

            He took a deep, somewhat shaky breath, but kept his eyes on his feet. “Wyatt gave a shit too. He just didn’t know enough to give a shit in the right way. He grew up next door, was my best friend from the time I knew what those words meant, and when I first told him about Bobo... Wyatt was so sure he was gonna save me. So righteous. So sure he could fix anything himself. And instead, he just got sucked in deeper than I ever did.

            “So I fell in love with the image of this guy who’d sworn he’d save me just to realize that’d all been bravado and bullshit.” Doc managed to rip the skin right off and expose red, raw skin underneath. He stared blankly at the new wound waiting for blood that wouldn’t come. Shaking his head, he said, “And even though I told myself over and over that Wyatt wasn’t gonna save me, that Bobo didn’t really care like he said he did, well. It was too late. They were all I had. And I wasn’t about to let go of that, ever.”

            Dolls waited a moment to see if maybe he’d say more. When he didn’t, Dolls placed a hand on his back and rubbed slow circles down his spine. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You didn’t deserve that.”

            “Not like I ever get what I deserve.” Then, Doc cleared his throat and sat up a bit, shaking Dolls’ hand off. “Your turn. You and Wy. Go.”

            Dolls hesitated, not sure if the story would make him feel better or worse, but when Doc’s blue eyes lit on his, he dove right in. He started on the first case they’d worked together, although he used the word “together” loosely. He told Doc about the fights they used to have, about how she thought he was just another cop who didn’t want to give up territory and he was genuinely worried for her safety. He told him about the day the damn broke and they’d had sex in an interrogation room. He told him about Wynonna wiping out on her motorcycle. He had spent the whole night in the hospital by her bed, unsure why he was there, unable to answer his coworkers when they asked why he cared so much. When she woke, she’d smiled at him and asked, “What? Waiting for the doctors to leave so you can pull the plug?”

            And he’d kissed her. The first real, honest kiss they’d shared. It was the moment they’d gone from enemies-with-benefits to actually dating and while Dolls had no clue how or why it’d happened, he’d never been happier. And he’d never forgotten that the only reason he had Wynonna in his life was because she’d almost died. And maybe that was the reason he was afraid to ever see her get hurt again.

            “That’s what I want,” Doc said when Dolls had finished. “I want that kind of love.”

            Dolls hesitated, then asked, “With who?”

            Doc shrugged. For the first time in what seemed like a while, he looked Dolls in the eyes. And Dolls felt like he’d never really looked Doc in the eyes before, not at such close quarters, not when he could so easily close the space between them with a kiss. Doc said, “With anyone.”

            Dolls almost said _with me?_ but instead pressed a soft kiss to Doc’s lips, not asking for anything, just wanting to reassure him that someone out there cared. He pulled back too fast, suddenly sure it’d been the wrong move, and got up. “You want something else to eat?” Dolls said, not knowing what time it was, not knowing how long it’d been since they’d eaten breakfast. Not long, he was sure.

            Doc watched him with those curious, gentle blue eyes. It was the kind of look Wynonna got when he avoided a subject, when she thought he was acting weird. But Doc, instead of coming out with the question on his mind, shrugged and said, “Sure.”

            Dolls headed into the kitchen, trying not to concern himself with how close Doc was following behind him. Part of him wanted to whip around and kiss the other man. A different part of him remembered that he’d offered to pay for Doc to stay, that whatever Doc did he was paying him for, that the power structure here wasn’t exactly what it should be.

            Dolls reached for the fridge handle but the door quickly slammed shut with the pressure of Doc’s hand. Dolls tried to inhale but couldn’t find the air. Doc was too close – not touching him, but warm, so warm – and his breath was in Dolls’ ear.

            Dolls chuckled. “I can’t make lunch if I can’t open the fridge.”

            “Seems like quite the dilemma.” The low rumble of his voice made Dolls squirm.

            Taking a steadying breath, Dolls turned around and pressed his back to the fridge. He fixed Doc with the most unimpressed look he could muster. Three inches taller than the man in front of him and Dolls still felt like he was being towered over. He wondered how they did that – both Wynonna and Doc – but had very little time to analyze it before Doc pressed their lips together.

            Dolls tried to meet the pace of Doc’s lazy, loving kisses, but he found it hard to stay slow with Doc’s hands on his hips sliding him forward, trying to get him down to his level. Dolls found himself laughing between each press of their lips, causing Doc’s teeth to scrape against his chin. Doc didn’t seem deterred in the least, just kept kissing whatever he could reach – Dolls’ lips, his chin, his jawline – as Dolls laughed.

            Dolls felt his pants start to slip down his hips and his feet start to skid on the floor. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around Doc’s belt to hold himself upright. The action got him pressed more firmly against the fridge, Doc’s body no longer a foot away but right up against him, his lips firm and unforgiving compared to their gentleness a few seconds before.

            Dolls groaned.

            The front door banged open.

            Doc stepped back quick, too quick maybe, and thumbed his bottom lip. Dolls scrambled back to his feet, keeping his back to the fridge, unsure his legs would hold him without the support. He pressed his palm to his lips, feeling the heat there, tasting the dying whiskey on Doc’s tongue. Their eyes met as Wynonna’s voice floated through the hall.

            “—and the kid’s got this sick bike, red leather and flames on the wheels, but the thing goes maybe twenty miles an hour. I swear, the horse was faster, but he _had_ to ditch it for this stupid ass bike.” She sighed heavily. “Boys. Remind me why I like you guys in the fir—”

            She cut herself off as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. Dolls quickly dropped his eyes to his feet, dropped his hand off his lips. Wynonna dumped her purse on the kitchen counter and said, “What are you two lookin’ so guilty about?” There was a playful lilt to her voice, something not quite real, and when Dolls looked up to meet her eyes, he knew she wasn’t quite sober.

            Wynonna stepped towards him and tilted his chin up with one finger. Her eyes sparkling, she leaned in, her lips brushing his as she whispered, “You having fun without me, Dolls?” Before he could reply, before he could apologize, she kissed him with all the force of her vodka breath, her teeth biting into his bottom lip.

            Dolls grabbed her hips, pulling her into him, quickly getting lost in the sloppiness of her kiss. She wrapped an arm around the back of his neck and pulled him away from the fridge just enough that he really felt the weakness in his knees.

            “Seems like my cue to go,” Doc said, his voice seeming to buzz and slur in Dolls’ ears. “You two have a good night.”

            Wynonna pulled off Dolls with a frown and grabbed Doc by a belt loop. Doc looked back at her, his eyes blank and far from curious. She pulled him back with her until she bumped into Dolls and he got a mouthful of her hair. Over the top of her head, he could see Doc’s eyes on her, his expression softening as Wynonna pulled him even closer.

            “No one wants you to go,” Wynona said, her voice soft and honest in ways Dolls only heard it when she didn’t quite know what she was saying. He brushed her hair to the side and kissed the base of her neck. Wynonna said, “Right, Dolls?”

            Dolls looked up at Doc, met his blue eyes, the obvious need there, the obvious want. Dolls nodded.

            Wynonna rose up on her tiptoes and kissed Doc with an open, forgiving mouth. Doc kissed her back with such fervour that Dolls was slammed back into the fridge, feeling the pressure of both of their bodies pressing into him, the press of Wynonna’s ass against his crotch and the tips of Doc’s fingers brushing against his chest. He continued to kiss Wynonna’s neck, closed his eyes and heard the soft grunts Doc made into the wild kiss. Dolls pressed a hand against both their hips, trying to pull them closer together, trying to pull them both closer to him.

            When the kiss broke, Doc exhaled heavily and Wynonna laughed her deep giggle. Doc still had his face pressed against hers but his eyes searched for Dolls’. When they met, Doc said, “Perhaps we should get the lady some coffee and let her reconsider.”

            “Yeah,” Dolls said, feeling his heart sink into his feet. He knew Doc was right, he just didn’t know why he didn’t come to the conclusion first. He reached out and brushed strands of greasy hair out of Doc’s face, letting his fingers linger against his cheek.

            Then Doc stepped back. Dolls took Wynonna gently by her waist, ignoring her protests, and hiked her up to sit on the kitchen counter. She looped her legs around his waist and kissed him again, deep and dirty. He groaned against her lips, wishing he really didn’t have to pull back, wishing there was no reason to. But he pulled himself out of her grasp, shot her a gentle smile, and turned on the coffee machine.

            “You caught the kid, right?” Dolls said as he looked for a mug.

            “No,” Wynonna said. Her voice had dropped its playfulness, dropped all its defences. “He was on a shit bike on the highway next to a semi. I wasn’t even close.”

            Then she was crying and before Dolls could move to catch her, Doc had her in his arms. Dolls looked back at the two of them, looked at the easy way she curled around him, at the gentle way Doc encircled her completely, and he knew. He knew broken, gentle people were the only ones for Wynonna. He knew they were the only ones for him.


	10. Wynonna

Wynonna sat once again curled underneath three blankets, a hot cup of coffee in her hands. Too hot, in fact. She alternated hands to hold it before giving up and nestling it in the blankets between her crossed legs. Doc was still running his fingers through her hair, the gentle motion as soothing as it was annoying. She was fine. The tears had stopped, the alcohol was wearing off, and as soon as the coffee cooled she’d be as good as new.

            Dolls walked into the living room and flopped down into the armchair, a deep sigh making his body deflate. Wynonna watched his defeat, feeling it like a physical blow. She knew she tired him. She knew she was too much for him. She’d do anything not to be.

            “When I sober up,” Wynonna said, already feeling sober just from the embarrassment and the tears, “can we try that again?”

            She felt Doc’s hand still but kept her eyes on Dolls. Dolls raised his head to look at her, his whole expression sad, his eyes wide and warning.

            “Perhaps I should go,” Doc said, soft. “This seems like a marital discussion.”

            When he stood, both Wynonna and Dolls reached for him. They each caught a hand. Wynonna let his fingers slide away from hers, the rough calluses on his hand so different and so familiar at the same time. Dolls, on the other hand, held tight, like he was asking for help. Wynonna didn’t blame him. She needed help with herself too.

            “No,” Dolls said. “I think... I think it’s about time we all admitted this goes a little past what we’re paying you for.”

            Doc dropped his hand and stepped back. He didn’t sit again, just crossed his arms. “I’m listenin’.”

            Dolls sighed. And Wynonna snorted, quickly muffling the sound with her hand, just glad to have Dolls’ exasperation pinned on someone else for a change. Dolls shot her a quick, conspiratorial glance, before fixing his eyes on Doc. “Calm down. I’m not trying to insult you or pay you for anything illegal.”

            “Then what are you saying?” Doc sounded no less offended.

            Dolls hesitated, the words caught on his tongue.

            “I think he’s saying this goes past sex,” Wynonna said. She didn’t dare look at Doc, didn’t want him to see her exposed like this. It was the whiskey, soaking into her blood like truth serum as she held Dolls’ eyes, let him hold her steady as emotions she never wanted to feel slowly crept their way back in. “He’s saying he... _we_ have feelings for you.”

            Dolls reached out and Wynonna took his hand, squeezed tight. When Dolls’ eyes left hers to meet Doc’s, she felt like she was falling. She felt like she was floating. Doc’s hand touched her shoulder, grounding her, steadying her, even though the touch was a simple afterthought.

            “It’s normal for people to think they have feelings for their hookers.” Doc’s voice was rough and when Wynonna looked up at him, she saw he wasn’t focused on Dolls at all. She placed her free hand over Doc’s and squeezed his fingers, willing him to look at her. When he did, his blue eyes sparkled with the sparest of tears, the kind of tears men got when they’d spent decades being taught they weren’t allowed to cry. Doc swallowed and said, “It doesn’t mean anything.”

            “You can’t say that,” Dolls said. “Not after last night. Not after today.”

            Doc pulled his hands away and stepped back, shaking his head. “We’ve met, what? Three times? And you’re trying to tell me that’s grown into something more than animal urges?”

            “It was never animal urges,” Wynonna said, turning to face him. “We talked. We connected. Then we kissed.”

            “Ours was a little more animal,” Dolls admitted, a wry smile on his pink lips. “But then we talked. I got to know you. I like you. Fuck me if I know why but... I do.”

            Doc shook, his feet trembling against the floor. He was biting his bottom lip so hard it had started to bleed.

            Wynonna set down the coffee and got to her feet. She brushed a hand through Doc’s long hair, pushing it behind his ears and letting her hands cradle his face. She pressed close to him, tilted her head to his chest, and tried to breathe in time with his shaky inhales. Not a word passed between them. She knew better than to talk when people were like this. They needed touch, warmth, connection.

            Her hands fell down and pressed against his chest. Looking up, she met his eyes. A few tears had rolled down his cheeks and she rose up onto her tiptoes to kiss them away. Then her lips met his, cold and salty, and she pressed the simplest, sweetest kiss against them, saying no more than _I’m here._

            “You have feelings for me?” Doc said, almost scoffing, as if he didn’t believe it.

            Wynonna nodded, slow. “We’re not the people who have hurt you. We’re not going anywhere.”

            “You told me you wanted our kind of love,” Dolls said. Wynonna could feel him approaching, felt his presence behind her. He reached out and lay his hand on top of hers, both pressed against Doc’s cheek. “We’re more than happy to give you that.”

            “You deserve to be loved,” Wynonna agreed. “So much.”

            Doc shook his head. He grabbed their hands and pulled them off, stepping away to wipe his face with his own hands. Wynonna wanted to follow him but Dolls put his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. She felt the air leave her lungs as Doc wandered through their living room, picking things up only to drop them, not knowing what was or wasn’t his to touch. She leaned back into Dolls’ arms, waiting, hoping.

            “You already love each other more than you can bear,” Doc shot at them. He stepped up to the back of the couch and gripped the cushions hard enough that his knuckles went white. “You love each other so much it’d kill you to see the other get hurt. Don’t tell me you have room for more love in your hearts. People aren’t that good. People don’t work that way.”

            “Maybe not the people you know,” Dolls said.

            “We’re not them,” Wynonna said, feeling Doc’s pain like it was in her heart, like his restlessness was fighting to break through her veins. She broke out of Dolls’ grip and knelt down on the couch, looking up at Doc with wide eyes. She hadn’t felt this desperate not to lose something since her last fight with Waverly. “Please,” she whispered. “We love you. We love you. We love you.”

            Dolls’ hands pulled her hair back, smoothed it down against her back as tears left her eyes. Doc’s eyes left hers and she knew the two men were having some sort of silent conversation, probably calling her weak, probably telling each other to humour her.

            Then Dolls said, “Some people, people like us, know how badly it hurts to have everything you love torn away from you. So when it comes to other broken people, we have to love them with all we’ve got, all over again.”

            “I’m just another broken person to you?”

            “No,” Wynonna said, “you’re the missing piece.”

            Dolls bent and kissed the top of her head and she let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. The words had slipped out, unbidden, and the second they’d left her lips she’d worried she might have hurt Dolls’ feelings. But that kiss, the gentle carding of his fingers through her hair, told her he felt the same. Those touches told her that no matter what happened with Doc, he wasn’t going anywhere.

            Doc hesitated, his breath hitching as his eyes moved from one of them to the other. “I’m not good at these things,” he said. “I don’t know...” He swallowed hard and wiped a hand across his lips. “People don’t care about me. It’s not something that happens.”

            “Well, let’s change that,” Dolls said.

            Wynonna stood on the couch and put her hands on Doc’s shoulders. When he looked up at her, a involuntary smile graced his lips. She kissed it off him, pulling his happiness into her, tangling her fingers in his hair. She pulled back only to breathe, only to meet his eyes and assure both of them this was as real as her husband’s hands on the back of her thighs, steadying her, making sure she didn’t fall.

            “Wasn’t it only an hour ago we were worried about Miss Earp’s sobriety?” Doc said, his voice not quite reaching the teasing tone he must have been going for.

            Wynonna laughed into his shoulder, her lips pecking at his neck.

            “That’s Mrs. Dolls to you,” Dolls said. He pressed his fingers into Wynonna’s hips and pulled her back, making sure her feet hit the floor. Landing a kiss on her temple, he said, “How about you finally drink that coffee?”

            She rolled her eyes but smiled all the same and settled back onto the couch. Picking up the mug, she took a sip of the now semi-warm liquid and scrunched up her nose. Tilting her head back, she saw Doc still standing over her behind the couch and she patted the place beside her, beckoning him. He smiled and traced a finger along her hairline, his eyes far away and lost.

            “While this is all well and good,” he said, soft, so soft, like he was afraid of breaking her, “what exactly does it mean?”

            Wynonna wrinkled her brow.

            “I have feelings for the two of you, if you’re wondering,” Doc said, “but I have a boyfriend. I have an apartment. I have a whole ‘nother life that neither of you seem to want a part in.”

            “Are you saying you want to keep your job?” Dolls said.

            Doc’s eyes left Wynonna’s face. “I’m saying I don’t know if Bobo will let me leave.”

            “Bobo?” Wynonna echoed. She sat upright, brought her feet off the coffee table and let them slam onto the floor. She looked between the two of them accusingly. “Who forgot to tell me that his boss is my sister’s boyfriend?”

            “I just found out,” Dolls said.

            “But you suspected before,” Doc countered. He rounded the couch and came to sit beside Wynonna, his eyes never leaving Dolls. He took Wynonna’s hand and intertwined their fingers. “And I think you knew too, darlin’. The second Dolls here told you sweet Willa bailed me out of jail.”

            Wynonna pulled her hand back. “So my sister set us up? She sent me to you?”

            “You chose me all on your own,” Doc said. His eyes slid sideways to meet hers and even though his voice was defensive, his look was apologetic. “All I knew was that you were Willa’s married sister.”

            Wynonna scoffed. “I knew the agency didn’t give you my name.”

            Doc smiled. “My slip, there.”

            “Don’t worry about Bobo,” Dolls said. “If he gives you any shit, I’ll take care of it.”

            Doc smirked and looked up at him, eyes shining, laughter all over his face. Affecting the accent of a Southern Belle, he said, “My big strong protector.”

            Dolls flipped him off.

            “That doesn’t really solve the problem of Bobo findin’ me when you ain’t around,” Doc said. “I live with another one of his boys. He has my number, my name, knows my face. I hate to tell you this isn’t amateur hour, detective, but it’s not.”

            “Move in here,” Wynonna said.

            Doc glanced her way, curious.

            “Wy—” Dolls began.

            “What?” she said, fixing him with a challenging glare. “We’re inviting Doc into our lives, into our marriage, promising to love and protect him, and you have a problem with him sleeping in our bed?”

            Dolls licked his lips. “Not at all.”

            Wynonna smiled, seeing the real reason for his nerves under all his nonchalant posturing. She put her hand on Doc’s thigh and squeezed slightly, just enough to get a smile out of him and a rise out of Dolls. She loved this new side of him, this side that was easy to tease, this side that could be coaxed into bed with little more than a few simple touches. Brushing her hand down the inside of Doc’s thigh, she said, “Good. We’ll go grab his stuff and move him in and pick up something to celebrate with.”

            She patted Doc on the knee and jumped up. On her way to the door, she kissed Dolls on the cheek, pretending to ignore the tense set of his jaw and the lust in his eyes.

            Behind her, she heard Doc say, “She always that much of a tease?”

            “She can be much, much worse,” Dolls said. “Still want in?”

            There was a shuffle of movement and she glanced over her shoulder to see Doc kiss Dolls on the lips. The simple gesture, the desperate simplicity of it, warmed her heart. Leaving Dolls behind, Doc walked up to her and slapped her on the ass. She jumped as he picked the keys out of her hands.

            “Let the sober one drive,” he said.

            “Tease,” she shot at him, smiling.

            Doc whirled around and kissed her hard. His mustache tickled her upper lip and she laughed into the kiss, the sound cutting off when he shoved her into the wall and she lost her breath. His knee pressed between her legs, keeping her just short of reaching the ground, and she fought against the whine that burgeoned in her throat.

            Doc stared at her for a moment, his eyes sparkling with promises, and then stepped back. “I don’t tease,” he said. “You can hold me to that.”

            “I will,” she said and then followed him out the door, sparing one last glance backwards to wave at Dolls as he stood watching them, a smile on his ever impassive face.


	11. Doc

“This is insane,” Wyatt hissed as Doc stuffed his clothes into a duffel bag. “Actually insane. You can’t just _move in_ with clients. Especially not when one of those clients is Bobo’s sister-in-law.”

            Doc gave Wyatt a bored look over his shoulder. Wyatt was very close, practically leaning over him, the heat of his body nearly unbearable, but Doc didn’t feel the stirrings of feelings he needed to swallow. Feelings, sure, but not the ones that threatened to crush him every time he looked Wyatt in the eye.

            “There’s no need to whisper,” Doc said. He tossed the duffel onto his bed as he kicked the last empty drawer closed. “She knows.”

            Wyatt spared Wynonna an annoyed glance and, if possible, stepped closer. He grabbed Doc’s elbow. “You can’t seriously be this stupid. You think a married couple, a _happily married couple_ , wants to invite you into their home, take care of you, love you? You think this is more than some twisted sex game for them?” Wyatt scoffed and forced Doc to turn around and face him. “You’re not a college girl with no life experience, Doc. You know better than this.”

            Doc blinked. “You’re right. I’m not a college girl. So maybe I know what the fuck I’m doing.” He pushed Wyatt away and grabbed the bags off his bed. Three in total, just enough for his clothes, the knick knacks in his room, and some books he didn’t want to leave behind. The rest of it Wyatt could sell or burn, whatever struck his fancy.

            Doc walked back into the living room and handed Wynonna a bag. She slung it over her shoulder like it was nothing, saluted Wyatt, and headed for the door. As Doc followed after her, Wyatt caught his arm again but this time he let his hand fall until their fingers brushed together. Wyatt squeezed Doc’s hand and brought him to a standstill.

            There was something in Wyatt’s eyes that Doc hadn’t seen for a long time. Something akin to fear, to real love, things Wyatt had all but forgotten when Bobo had offered him money in exchange for doing his favourite thing. “Please,” Wyatt whispered. “What am I supposed to do without you here?”

            “I doubt it’ll be much different for you.”

            Wyatt’s grip tightened. “You’re fucking up. I am the person who cares for you. And what about Jeremy? Are you just gonna break his little heart?”

            Doc flinched away from Wyatt’s touch like it stung. He knew, just by the way Wyatt smirked, that his poker face had fallen. On his other side, Wynonna’s hand touched his arm, so light it almost wasn’t there at all. Doc knew in a moment she’d coax him out the door, wrap herself around his arm and let him lead her downstairs, but Wyatt had reminded him of something.

            “Did Jeremy leave anything here?” Doc said.

            Wyatt shrugged and took a step backwards. Doc kept his eyes on the other man as he wandered past, pushing papers off the coffee table, looking for some sort of proof. When he found the paper, Jeremy had highlighted the name of the person who owned the website domain: Willa Earp.

            Doc crumpled the paper and shoved it in his back pocket. Quickly, he walked back to Wynonna and let her pull him out the door.

            In the hall, she said, “What a fucking dick.”

            “He can probably hear you.”

            “I HOPE HE DIES OF AIDS!” Wynonna shouted, glaring back at the closed door.

            Doc laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist. It was hard to do with a full duffel bag between them but somehow he managed. Downstairs, they tossed the duffels into the bed of the truck and jumped into the cab. Doc took a deep breath, his hand on the ignition but his fingers shaking instead of pushing it.

            “Doc?” Wynonna prompted, her voice soft. He met her eyes and she smiled. “Wanna get something to drink?”

            “Then who would drive?”

            She shrugged. “You look like you can handle your liquor.” She pressed the ignition for him and the engine revved to life. “If not, we can call Dolls.”

            Doc drove to the nearest bar and parked the truck out front. With Wynonna’s hand in his, they entered the dive – a shady, beer-soaked place he often went with Wyatt – and ordered two scotches. Their drinks got less expensive as they went, going from scotch to whiskey to bourbon to beer until the sun started to fall in the sky. Wynonna’s head was on the bar and Doc’s fingers were in her hair, stroking gently, wondering what she could possibly be thinking. Part of him wanted to apologize for the morning, for the kid on the bike, but he knew that part was alcohol-soaked and unaware of what Wynonna needed.

            Her phone buzzed and she startled, banging her skull against the bar. Groaning, she sat up and looked at the screen. “Shit,” she murmured. Doc expected Dolls but when she picked up, she said, “Wynonna Earp. Your go-to girl for underage felon escapees. What can I do for you?”

            Whoever was on the other line did not sound amused. As he spoke, Wynonna scrambled for a pen and something to write on. Doc shoved a napkin her way and then reached over the bar for the pen the bartender was using to do the books. Wynonna scribbled something out that was nearly illegible and jumped to her feet just before she hung up.

            “Let’s go,” she said.

            Doc scrambled after her, his brain a jumble, his legs wobbly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d met someone who could match him drink for drink and still walk afterward. Who could walk better than him afterwards.

            When Wynonna asked for the keys, he just gave them to her. The back of his brain itched, some thought he should be able to access, but he couldn’t catch hold of it. Before he’d buckled in, the truck had roared to life and was back on the road. Wynonna swerved into the other lane before moving back, her hands so tight on the wheel her knuckles went ghost white.

            “Dolls,” Doc said, somewhat sleepy. “We were supposed to call Dolls.”

            “Seventeen year-old on the highway in a Trans Am,” Wynonna said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Going twice the speed limit and ready to get himself fucking killed rather than go to jail for two years.” She swore under her breath, sniffed, and wiped at her nose with the sleeve of her leather jacket. “Fucking idiot.”

            Doc reached for her hand on the gear shift but she shook him off. Everything about her was a blur from her red hair to the black jacket to the dark interior of the truck. The road flashed by, thankfully empty. Black asphalt glittered in the light of the dying sun.

            “Why?” Doc said.

            “Huh?”

            “The kids,” Doc slurred, trying to get his thoughts in order. She glanced at him but barely had her eyes off the road for a second. Doc managed, “You go after the kids. They die. Why? Why do that?”

            Wynonna ground her jaw and shifted into a higher gear as the engine rumbled in protest. She blew through a yellow light and then a red one. “Let’s just say the bounty hunters that came after me weren’t so nice.” She narrowly avoided a grey car coming through an intersection as she blinked tears out of her eyes. “Let’s say it’s a little too close to home to see the small ones in the hospital because of their stupid fucking stunts.”

            “You?”

            “No.” Wynonna shook her head hard. “Waverly.”

            Doc frowned, trying to reconcile the little he knew of Waverly – and it wasn’t much besides her name – with a young girl pulling stunts that would land her in the hospital.

            “My stunts,” Wynonna clarified as if she could hear his thoughts. “Waverly in the hospital. God.” She slammed her hand against the steering wheel and the horn blared. “I’m so fucking lucky she talked to me for as long as she did. Goddamn.”

            Doc reached for the wheel as Wynonna started to cry. His heart had picked up pace in his chest but he couldn’t quite figure out why or how or what was happening. Wynonna’s hand wrapped around his own on the wheel and they guided the car carelessly, much too quickly, onto the highway, looking for a Trans Am.

            “There,” Doc said, spotting a red car barrelling down the road.

            Wynonna took a deep breath and rolled down her window. Her hands slipped from the wheel as she shouted, “Pull over! Pull over!” And as she continued shouting, sirens sounded behind them.

            “Cops,” Doc said, trying to hide the rising panic in his voice.

            “PULL OVER!” Wynonna shouted, waving her hands in the air to get the kid’s attention as Doc swerved closer to his car. Wynonna grabbed the edge of the window ledge and pulled her torso out of the cab, leaning too close to the other car.

            Doc manoeuvred himself so he could get a foot on the gas and tried, as carefully as he could, to run the Trans Am onto the side of the road. From his vantage point, he could see a blurred profile in the car – blonde hair, dark cheeks – and nothing else. He could hear Wynonna begging the kid to slow down and, when their truck started to pull ahead, Doc took his foot off the gas slightly.

            Slowly, both cars came to a stop on the side of the road.

            Wynonna hiked herself out of the window and went over to the kid’s car. She opened the driver’s door and wrapped him in a tight hug as Doc struggled to shut off the truck’s engine. The sirens came closer, blaring, until they were right behind them. Doc tried to sit up, tried to get himself together, tried to figure out what the fuck he could say to the cops. But there was little more to say other than he’d gotten wasted with Wynonna and then they’d gone after a bail jumper on a busy road at rush hour.

            The door beside Doc opened and he blinked into Dolls’ face. Dolls sighed as he looked at him. “You’re so lucky they called me,” he said. He grabbed Doc by the shirt collar and pulled him out of the truck. When Doc’s feet twisted beneath him, Dolls rested him back against the truck and pushed the dishevelled hair out of his eyes. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he said.

            “Ask your wife,” Doc said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

            Dolls glanced over Doc’s shoulder and whatever he saw made some of the tension in his expression soften. “She’s busy reading the kid the riot act,” he said, the edge in his tone all but gone. “I’ll let her cuff him first.”

            “She was driving.”

            “She does that.” Dolls sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Shit.”

            “You gonna book us?”

            “I don’t know what else to do. It’s not like I can just tell my captain the high-speed chase was to track down my idiot partners who I didn’t arrest because of my personal connection to them.” Dolls groaned and looked up into the sky as if maybe God held the answers. “You two are so fucking stupid. What happened to getting your stuff and coming right back?”

            “Wyatt happened.” Doc glanced over his shoulder to see Wynonna sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the kid. Her face was streaked with tears as she fumbled with the cuffs. Looking back at Dolls, Doc said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let her drink again.”

            “Her?” Dolls scoffed. “You shouldn’t have let yourself drink. Look at you.”

            Doc glanced down at his clothes which were, arguably, more rumpled than they should have been. And stained. And wet with alcohol and sweat. He frowned at himself, everything still dizzy and stumbling.

            Dolls pushed Doc’s hair back again, his fingers wandering over Doc’s cheeks. Dolls looked so tired, so helpless, and Doc wanted to do anything, everything, to make sure he never looked like that again.

            “Waverly,” Doc said, suddenly remembering.

            “What?”

            “What did Wynonna do to put Waverly in the hospital?”

            “Shit.” Dolls was already moving while he said the word. He was at Wynonna’s side in an instant, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close as the handcuffs dropped from her trembling fingers. With a practiced hand, Dolls got the cuffs on the kid and whispered something – probably telling him to give Wynonna the credit for his arrest.

            Doc turned to rest his arms against the walls of the truck bed, let his chin rest on his forearms. Slowly, Dolls got Wynonna to her feet and deposited her in the back of his truck. He pushed a button on the dash and the lights and the siren went off, but other sirens could be heard in the distance. Other cops and probably an ambulance and maybe even the fire department to clean up what could have been an awful mess. Doc felt his stomach turn at the thought and, before he could move, he vomited all over his duffel bags.

            Dolls’ hand landed on the small of his back and he was escorted to the other truck as well. Dolls landed him in the back too and then stood at the door, staring at both of them. “You need help,” he said. “Professional help.”           

            “We’ve been over this,” Wynonna grumbled.

            “We’ll do it,” Doc said. He couldn’t quite meet Dolls’ eyes in the state he was in but he tried for a weak smile anyways. “Whatever you want. We’ll do it.”

            Dolls slammed the door and Doc watched him walk away to greet the other cops. The Dolls he knew – or thought he knew – didn’t seem to exist anymore. There was no smile on this man’s face, no easy conversation, no happiness. Even the anger that seemed to consume him sometimes had been washed away.

            “He hates me,” Wynonna mumbled.

            Doc reached an unsteady hand towards her and it landed on one of her legs. He noticed she was lying across the seats, awkwardly curled into a corner, her foot right next to him. He rubbed her thigh. “No, he doesn’t,” Doc whispered, his voice rough and groggy. “He doesn’t hate you.”

            “He does.” Wynonna’s voice broke on a sob and her whole body started to shake. “I shouldn’t do this to him. I know better. I know better.”

            “What are you talking about, darlin’,” he whispered, not really expecting an answer.

            “Dolls’ parents were killed by a drunk driver.”

            Doc looked down at her but her face was hidden. The words had been so soft he wasn’t sure if he’d heard them right but she was no long conscious. He tried to shift her so her head was hanging off the seat and she wouldn’t suffocate on her own vomit but barely managed to move her. Doc’s limbs felt heavy, leaden even, and his heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest.

            He’d agreed to enter a home with people who claimed to love him, people who wanted to take care of him. He hadn’t agreed to enter a home with people slowly trying to destroy each other, people so broken and bruised that Doc couldn’t do anything other than cut himself on their edges. He remembered his mother’s eyes when he’d knocked on her door, the bruises on her cheeks, the track marks in her bare arms. He remembered her saying _everything would have been fine if you’d never existed. It would have been like it’d never happened at all._

            Doc wished now, more than ever, that he’d been aborted.

            Too much time passed, so much that the night was dark when Dolls came back to the truck. He slipped into the front seat and glanced into the rear-view mirror. Doc tried to open his eyes enough that Dolls would know he was there, he was awake, but he doubted Dolls even wanted to know. What was a guy to feel when his wife and the man he was sleeping with went on a drunken joyride to save a kid? What did a guy think when his wife took all her trauma in her hands and tried to fix it, but broke open his own trauma when she did? What guy kept a man who had only broken the pieces into a finer mash, making them even harder to put back together?

            “Sit up,” Dolls whispered. He turned on the radio but kept the volume on low. Static country songs filled the truck. “Come on, sit up. Seatbelts. I’m taking you home.”

            Doc nudged Wynonna but she moved before he did. Trails of vomit stuck to her lips and she sniffed as she got upright. Doc watched her and Dolls, forgetting to move until she hit his knee and then he sat upright so quickly his head spun.

            “I’m sorry,” Wynonna croaked.

            “It’s okay,” Dolls said. “Seatbelts.”

            They both scrambled for them and got them clicked in a moment later.

            “Are we going to jail?” Wynonna said.

            There was a breath of silence and then Dolls shook his head. “I promised I’d get you guys to join a program. There’ll be a court date still and probation but... you didn’t hurt anyone and you’ve got a lot of cops on your side.” The engine roared to life and the truck lurched forward. “Unless the prosecutor refuses, you’re not going anywhere other than home.”


	12. Dolls

Dolls spent the night clearing the house of alcohol and periodically checking to make sure Wynonna and Doc didn’t choke on their own vomit. He was almost ready to curl up on the couch to get some sleep when he heard a creak on the stairs. Heading for the front hall, he caught Doc at the door, his duffel bags over his shoulders.

            “Where are you going?” Dolls asked, his voice barely a whisper.

            Doc turned, the expression on his face bleak. “I thought I’d get out of your hair.”

            “What?”

            “I’m just making everything worse.” Before Dolls could protest, Doc held up a hand to silence him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I can figure these things out on my own, you know.”

            “And where are you gonna go?” Dolls stepped forward and pulled a bag off of Doc’s arm. It thumped to the ground between them. “Back to Wyatt? Back to Bobo?”

            Doc shrugged. “I’m not sure yet.”

            “Then don’t go.” Dolls took a step forward and pulled the other two bags off of Doc’s shoulders. He met Doc’s eyes, tried to hold them in the low light, but it was nearly impossible. “I get it. You’re used to blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong. But this? This isn’t your fault.”

            “You never would have taken her drinking.”

            “No,” Dolls agreed, “but I’m not an alcoholic.”

            Doc opened his mouth to protest but quickly closed it. He looked at his feet.

            Dolls tilted his chin up. “You’re not ruining anything. You’re not making anything worse. If anything, you’re making everything better.” He caressed Doc’s cheek and moved closer still, wanting to pull the other man in and whisper all the sweet nothings Wynonna scoffed at. Dolls licked his lips. “We’re not the picture perfect married couple you imagine us to be. We’re messy. We fight. Shit like this happens so often and yet it’s the first time it’s happened since you entered our lives.”

            Dolls rubbed his thumb across Doc’s lips. “This isn’t your fault. This is about things you didn’t even know about.”

            “For example?”

            “When Wynonna was fifteen, she skipped bail on a robbery charge. Small time thing, really she was just trying to get Waverly a birthday present, but uh... Waverly’s always wanted to be like Wynonna. She’s always wanted the adventure, the responsibility, to be worthy of the Earp name. So when Wynonna came for her clothes, Waverly begged her to let her come with. And Wynonna had this bike at the time, a junker of a Harley, probably wasn’t even road safe. She let Waverly come after hours of begging and, well, with all the traffic and the bounty hunters after her... she wiped out.” Dolls cleared his throat and realized he was now looking at his feet. “Wynonna was fine. Couple scratches, some bad bruises, but very lucky. Waverly, on the other hand, was in the hospital for weeks. She almost didn’t make it. She almost didn’t make it to the point that Willa showed up and tried to be a big sister again. Wynonna’s never really forgiven herself for that. So when a kid dies, it hits her pretty hard.”

            “It’d hit anyone pretty hard.”

            “Yeah.” Dolls let his hand fall from Doc’s face and stepped back. He sniffed, surprised to feel the tears in his eyes. He had long since swallowed the grief of his parents’ deaths, long since stopped flinching at every mention of a DUI in the news. But when it came to Wynonna behind the wheel with alcohol in his veins, his muscles felt paralyzed. He not only remembered the night his parents died but he felt it. He felt the cold October air, heard the police sirens, was heavy with the fatigue that had come over him at the late night phone call.

            He felt it as if he had been there, as if he had been in the car, when really he’d been half a world away in his bunk, dreaming of a world without war.

            “I’m sorry,” Doc said. “Wynonna told me about your parents. I... I can’t imagine it’s fun to watch her do the same.”

            “It’s not fun to watch you do it either.”

            Doc looked sheepish.

            “Go back to sleep,” Dolls said. He kicked the duffel bags out of the way. “You and Wy can unpack in the morning.”

            Doc took his hand and squeezed. “Come with me.”

            Dolls wanted to protest, wanted to say there was more to do, but there wasn’t. So he nodded and walked with Doc back to the bedroom. Wynonna laid taking up as much room as possible, which on a king-sized bed still wasn’t much. Dolls smiled down at her as Doc crawled in beside her, lifting the covers so Dolls could get in with them. Dolls took a moment to take off his belt and jeans, but left his shirt on as he slipped into bed.

            He expected to have a hard time getting to sleep, to have to spend hours watching Doc and Wynonna sleep before he was truly sure they were safe, but the late hour and the trauma of the day took its toll and before he knew it, his alarm went off.

            Dolls grabbed his phone to shut off the alarm and sighed. He felt warm and heavy and most of that feeling came from the fact that Doc was half on top of him, snoozing peacefully. Dolls ran a hand through his hair and looked to the side, trying to spot Wynonna. She wasn’t in bed.

            Dolls crawled carefully out from beneath Doc and went to the closed bathroom door. He knocked lightly and entered when he heard a murmured noise of assent.

            Wynonna looked up at him from her spot on the bathroom floor. The toilet was open in front of her but she didn’t look like she’d been puking. A little shaky and grey maybe, but her mouth was clean as was the toilet bowl.

            “I thought I’d wake up alone,” she said.

            Dolls knelt down beside her and pulled her into an awkward, sideways hug. “By now, you should know I’m not going anywhere.”

            She pressed her face into his chest, breathing deeply. “It was weird,” she whispered, “rolling into Doc in the middle of the night. Smelling him instead of you.” She looked up, her blue eyes less vibrant than usual, the scent of her like a distillery that had been set on fire. “Part of me kept thinking ‘this is the last straw, this is when he’ll leave me.’”

            Dolls kissed the top of her head. “Like I said, you should know better by now.”

            She grabbed his arm when he tried to stand. “I’m sorry. I know how you feel about drunk driving and I know I put you in a shitty spot as a police officer and I will never do it again. I don’t like making you feel like shit.”

            “I know.” He stood and offered her a hand to pull her up. When she took it, he got her to her feet and added, “You’re going to AA, too. No protests this time. Doc’s gonna go with you. The two of you are getting separate sponsors and when you feel like you need a drink, you’re gonna come talk to me. Not each other. Me. Got it?”

            Wynonna nodded.

            “Good.” He kissed her and then shifted past her. “I gotta shower and go to work. Get some water, start breakfast.”

            “Yes, boss.” She rolled her eyes and left.

            Dolls smiled at her until the door closed and then let the expression fade. Looking into the mirror, he reminded himself not to shake, not to think about it. He had to be the strong one right now.

            The morning passed easily. Dolls had his reservations about leaving them alone but with all the alcohol out of the house, he let his unease pass. At work, Eliza had a lot to say about his wife’s little stunt the night before but Dolls shut it out in favour of working the case. Nicole had moved her work into the board room too. All the tables were covered in paper, three bulletin boards stood at the front of the room, and the windows were covered with mug shots. It was organized chaos kept together with a healthy dose of tension between the three people working the case.

            And the day kept going. Dolls called at lunch to check in on everything and got a very tired Wynonna, her voice blurred by loud music from the TV. But all seemed well. The afternoon went much the same as the morning and the evening was filled with making dinner and keeping Wynonna and Doc entertained without alcohol.

            For days, the slow, tense, worried days played out. Dolls did his best to stay unconcerned, to believe the others would reach out to him if they needed him, but he also knew them better than that. He knew prodding was the only way to get them to really talk to him. He knew driving them to their AA meetings was the only way to make sure they really went.

            The court date went fine, if a little awkwardly. Waverly had agreed to talk to the prosecutor running the case – an old friend of hers from law school – and got him to agree to probation and out-patient treatment. The mandatory psychiatry threw Dolls for a loop but he didn’t protest it and drove Doc and Wynonna to those appointments as well.

            It took two weeks for Wynonna’s guilt to ease enough that she tired of his hovering. He took her annoyance as a sign that she was finally starting to recover and backed off a little. He trusted them to go to AA together, to get to their own psychiatry appointments, and even get through a work day without contacting him.

            The thing that bothered him most was how close Doc and Wynonna had gotten. He tried not to be annoyed, to feel jealous, but it was hard to watch his wife lean in close to another man’s ear and whisper something that made him laugh. It was hard to come home to them on the couch, their legs tangled together, watching a show he had never really liked and laughing together. In a lot of ways, Doc seemed to be Wynonna’s other half. He liked whiskey and bad cartoons and recklessness. Maybe that’s why Dolls had ended up not punching him the face – because he reminded him too much of his wife.

            Three weeks in, Dolls stood at the kitchen counter cutting peppers when Doc got a phone call. He checked the screen, pursed his lips, and then set it down without disconnecting the call. Dolls raised an eyebrow. “You wanna get that?”

            Doc shook his head.

            “Or hang up?”

            Doc shook his head again.

            Dolls finished chopping the pepper, swept the pieces into his hand and then dumped them into the pan on the stove. In one smooth movement, he picked up Doc’s phone and looked at the screen. _Bobo_.

            Dolls bit his tongue. “You afraid to hang up on him?”

            “If I hang up on him, he’ll know,” Doc said, his voice steady and bored. “But if I just let it ring, he might assume I have no idea where my phone is or what that infernal ringing noise is.”

            Dolls snorted and set the phone back down. “He hasn’t figured out by now that you moved out and aren’t turning tricks anymore?”

            Doc shrugged. “He’s not that bright.”

            Wynonna walked into the room yawning and glanced at the stove. “You forgot the rice again,” she said and, without skipping a beat, she went to get another pot. Dolls shifted out of the way as she started the rice for the stir-fry, turning the heat way up in a desperate attempt for the timing not to be completely off. He smiled at her and she pecked him on the cheek. “This is why you shouldn’t cook without me.”

            “Rice is about the only thing you can cook,” he said.

            She swatted his ass playfully and jumped up to sit on the counter. Picking a slice of carrot out of the pan with her bare fingers, she said, “Someone’s gotta do the easy things around here.” Her eyes found Doc’s and they seemed to engage in some sort of silent conversation that Dolls wasn’t privy to. Then she said, “So, we were wondering if we’re out of the dog house yet?”

            “What?” Dolls said. He slapped her hand away when she went for another carrot.

            “You’ve been keeping us at an arm’s length ever since the _incident_ ,” Doc said. When Dolls glanced back at him, he was staring down at his blank phone screen. “And we were wondering when you might cut us some slack and...” He trailed off.

            “Fuck us,” Wynonna said with zero shame as she met Dolls’ eyes.

            Dolls stared at her.

            “What?” she said. “Do you expect us to be sober _and_ celibate? Because it’s damn hard doing both.”

            Dolls continued to stare.

            “We can keep going,” Doc suggested, “but AA might be a little more bearable if—”

            “We could come home to _something_ more exciting than sad alcoholics who have lost custody of their children.”

            Dolls couldn’t help the smile that inched its way onto his face. “Are you saying I’m not more exciting than sad alcoholics?”

            Wynonna shrugged.

            Doc said, “You could be.”

            Dolls shook his head and focused back on the stir-fry. He lowered the heat a little and stirred it with a spatula. “I just kinda assumed,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady and light, “that you two were already...”

            “Without you?” Wynonna said, her brow crinkling.

            Dolls met her eyes. “What else do you have to do alone all day?”

            “We’re still tryin’ get through _Supernatural_ ,” Doc said.

            Wynonna nodded. “It’s like socially acceptable porn.”

            Dolls laughed.

            Wynonna nudged him with her foot, her eyes all soft and bedroom-y. “So what do you say?” she said. “Want to save us from the depths of our boredom? Give our poor alcoholic hearts a reason to feel happy again?”

            Dolls shoved her foot away, trying to hide the smile on his face. “Don’t say alcohol’s the only thing that makes you happy,” he said as sternly as he could manage. “It’s not good for you to associate—”

            Wynonna had slipped off the counter and walked around behind him. Now she had a hand on his ass and her lips on the back of his neck. Dolls bit his lip, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of any sound leaving his body. “Just a little taste?” she whispered, her breath hot against the shell of his ear. Her hand trailed down his arm. “We don’t even have to go all the way if you don’t want.”

            Dolls tried to stay focused on not burning the food even as he saw Doc approaching from the other side. Dolls shook his head, nearly imperceptibly, but Doc either didn’t see or ignored him completely.

            Doc reached around him and turned off the burners. His expression was soft and mischievous all at once. His hand caressed Dolls’ cheek, sliding down until it rested against Dolls’ racing pulse. Dolls could see worlds in Doc’s eyes, whole universes, promises neither of them would be able to keep. Doc’s thumb rubbed across his lip.

            “I could just watch,” Doc murmured. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

            Dolls licked his lips. His hands scrambled for purchase and soon his fingers were curled around those of his lovers. Wynonna took a step back, came around to look him in the eye. She let her fingers trail across Dolls’ lips too, a small and somewhat sad smile on her face.

            “You do everything for us,” Wynonna whispered. “You take such good care of us and act like there’s nothing you need in return.”

            “I like to.”

            She shifted closer and looked him in the eyes. Each word sent shivers of warm breath over his lips. “Let us do something for you,” she said. “Let us take care of you.”

            Dolls had a brief, fleeting wonder of how long she and Doc had been planning out their script for this moment. Then she kissed him and those thoughts floated away because here was his wife with her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips on his and the echoes of her voice begging for him to come closer. Nothing could be more perfect.


	13. Wynonna

Wynonna could feel her heart beating between her collarbones, hear it rushing like waves through her ears. She was all too aware that her nerves, her shaking fingers, and her desperate urge to cry all came because Dolls was finally touching her. Finally kissing her. It had been weeks and she had started to believe more than she had ever believed before that he would never touch her again. That she had finally crossed a line that there was no coming back from.

            Carefully, she pulled out of the kiss and pressed her palms to his cheeks. His dark eyes smiled at her, so sweet and soft. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and cupped her chin in his warm hand. She turned her head to kiss his palm, his wrist, and then stepped slowly out of the circle of his arms.

            The simple act pained her but she had to. Every nerve firing in her body wasn’t just for Dolls and as she stepped away from him, her hand lingering on his waist, she met Doc’s eyes. He smiled softly, the kind of smile that told her he was ready for an apology, ready to hear her say _this was a mistake_ and send him on his way. And he’d happily go too, leave them to it, let them continue on as a simple suburban married couple and he’d live his life without them, no matter how much it hurt.

            But Wynonna didn’t want to hurt Doc. Even if it took every ounce of her self control, she never wanted to hurt either of them again.

            She touched Doc’s face and pulled him in for a kiss that was nothing like the one she’d just shared with Dolls. If Dolls was the whole universe than Doc was each individual star and Wynonna didn’t know if she could love the universe without loving its stars. Doc’s mustache tickled her upper lip and she smiled into the kiss, letting the one big gesture turn into smaller pecks until she pulled back to rest her face against his chest.

            Dolls wrapped his arms around her, around both of them, the solid weight of his body the only anchor Wynonna needed. Sometimes she felt like he was weighing her down but more often than not, Dolls made her feel like she could fly without completely losing herself to the sky. She heard the wet sounds of them kissing over her shoulder and smiled into the fabric of Doc’s shirt. With sure fingers, she started to undo the buttons on his shirt and kissed his skin as it was exposed.

            Then Dolls’ attention shifted to her neck, his fingers brushing back her hair, his lips on her pulse point. Four hands reached their way under her shirt and she laughed at the sensation, unable to help the jolt of panic that went through her at the unfamiliar attention. Her shirt went over her head easily and she spent a singular, breathless moment looking at Doc as he looked at her, feeling cold for the first time as they’d both stepped back to give her more room.

            Wynonna reached forward and scrambled to undo the rest of Doc’s buttons. Shoving the shirt off his shoulders, he finally smiled at her, like the world was coming undone, like he knew exactly what they were doing. He brushed the hair out of her eyes just like Dolls did and Wynonna’s breath stuttered, nearly stopped.

            Dolls wrapped his arms around her from behind, his hands sliding over her bare belly. “You all right?” he whispered. He kissed the skin behind her ear. “We can stop if you’re not comfortable.”

            “No, it’s not... it’s not that.” She shook her head, aware that the concern in Dolls’ voice was matched by the look in Doc’s eyes. “It’s just...” She tilted her head to look at Dolls’ face and he pulled back to meet her eyes. “I never thought I deserved you.” Her voice broke and she swallowed it. “Do I... do we... really deserve him?”

            Dolls chuckled. “He’s right there, Wy.” He kissed her and then slipped away from her, approaching Doc with sure footfalls. With gentle fingers, he pushed the hair off Doc’s neck and kissed the skin there. “What do you think, Doc?” he asked, an edge of laughter in his voice. “Do we deserve you?”

            Doc gave him a sideways look full of warmth and affection. “If you deserve me, you must have done something very, very bad in your lives.”

            “I’ve done more bad things than you can count,” Wynonna quipped. She undid her jeans and stepped out of them, relishing the way both men’s eyes fell across her body. “But this isn’t a group therapy session.”

            “If it is,” Dolls said, “it’s the most fun one I’ve been to.”

            Wynonna stepped forward and kissed him. With Doc’s help, she got Dolls’ shirt off and seconds later he swung her up onto the kitchen counter. She wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him closer, nearly sliding off the edge of the marble countertop as she kissed him.

            Then Dolls moaned and knowing she’d done nothing to coax that sound out of him, she opened her eyes to see Doc laying kisses down the length of his spine. His hands were under the fabric of Dolls’ jeans and kneading his ass. Wynonna smiled into the kiss, breaking it as Dolls buried his face into her shoulder to muffle the sounds he was making. She kissed his neck. “Let him hear you,” she coaxed. “You sound good.”

            Dolls laughed. “Yeah and how long did it take me to...” He bit his lip against the rumble in his throat and sighed. “To let you... hear me.”

            Doc made a sound somewhere between disappointment and laughter.

            “Don’t worry,” Wynonna said. “He can’t shut up with me. He won’t last another minute with both of us.”

            Dolls opened his mouth to protest just as Wynonna put her hand down the front of his pants. As he bit his bottom lip, Wynonna swayed her head to the side, trying to meet his darting eyes. “What, Dolls?” she teased. “Is the ‘strong and silent’ act failing you?”

            “Finally,” Doc said.

            Wynonna leaned over Dolls’ shoulder and kissed Doc. She moved even closer to do it, her crotch resting against her own hand as she slid it down the length of Dolls’ shaft. She gasped at the feel of Doc’s sandpaper tongue, and the roughness of her own hand pressing against the lace of her magenta panties, and the response she was getting from Dolls. The slight movement of his hips was all she needed to know he was losing control, that he had finally relaxed, that somehow she’d managed to get him to fall apart.

            “The bedroom,” Dolls mumbled between heavy breaths. His lips were wet and sloppy against Wynonna’s shoulder. “We can’t... we can’t have sex on the kitchen floor.”

            “I disagree,” Doc said.

            Wynonna moaned her agreement as Doc’s hand worked its way up her bare leg. Dolls pushed forward against the counter, no doubt feeling Doc against his ass the way Wynonna felt him in her hand.

            “Bedroom,” Dolls repeated. “Non-negotiable.”

            Wynonna almost laughed but muffled it well enough. Doc caught her eyes, the smile on his face matching hers, and he stepped back with his hands raised in surrender. Dolls sighed and shifted away from Wynonna. He wiped his palm across his face, his breathing still heavy.

            Wynonna leaped off the counter and said, “One addendum.”

            Dolls glanced at her over his shoulder.

            “Your pants stay here.” She crossed her arms. “Both of you.”

            Dolls didn’t move.

            Doc shrugged and undid his belt. He let his jeans drop to the ground and Wynonna allowed herself a second to appreciate his hairy chest. His muscles were less well-defined than Dolls’ but they were still there, strong and steady, pulsing with the energy of the moment. His legs were slightly bowed, giving a nice view of the tent in his underwear.

            When Wynonna shifted her eyes to Dolls, he seemed frozen, his eyes drinking in all the things Wynonna had seen. She smiled at him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Dolls,” she whispered. “Don’t be selfish. Give him a show.”

            “Wouldn’t want to embarrass him,” Dolls said.

            Doc smirked and stepped forward. “Good luck with that, darlin’.” He wrapped his fingers around Dolls’ waistband and slowly undid the zipper. Wynonna leaned over Dolls’ shoulder, torn between watching Dolls’ pants drop and waiting for the expression on Doc’s face. Doc let out a low whistle when Dolls’ hardness showed pressed against the fabric of his boxers. Then he took it in his hand and Dolls bit down on a grunt. Doc smiled at Wynonna and said, “It’s better to know what to do with a cock than have a big one.”

            Wynonna couldn’t help the laughter that left her throat. Dolls playfully shoved her backwards as he reached forward and pressed his palm to Doc’s crotch. There was something dark in his voice as he said, “Trust me. I know what to do with one.”

            Wynonna watched for a moment as the two stood staring at each other and holding each other’s dicks without doing much else. After a minute, she stepped back and said, “As fun as this little pissing contest is, I’m gonna be in the bedroom, naked, and if neither of you are in there in five minutes, I’m gonna take care of myself.”

            As Wynonna turned, she heard the sound of both men following her. She shook her head, muttering “men” under her breath, and took the stairs two at a time. On the landing, she undid her bra clasp and let it fall to the floor. She stepped over it daintily, swallowing her smirk at the slight catch she heard in Dolls’ breath. When she stepped through the bedroom doorway, she hooked her thumbs into her panties but before she could pull them down, hands came down over her own.

            On her right hip, Dolls’ hand held steady and warm, the bitten nubs of his fingernails digging into her bones. On her left, Doc’s hand curled over her fingers, his palm rough and callused. She took a moment to make sure her voice was steady and then said, “What, boys? Don’t tell me you’re really that patient.”

            “Tease,” they chided her as one.

            She laughed as Doc pulled her underwear down and Dolls grabbed her by the waist. She swung up in his strong arms and wrapped herself around him for purchase, the magenta lace still hanging onto her foot. Dolls dropped her on the bed and Wynonna felt the air leave her lungs, cutting her laughter short but not her smile.

            She waited as Dolls watched her, waited as Doc made his way over to them. Doc curled his arm around Dolls’ hips, his fingers slipping under the waistband of his boxers. Doc pressed a kiss to Dolls’ shoulder and asked, “Have either of you done this before?”

            “No,” Dolls said.

            Wynonna shook her head.

            Doc hummed contemplatively. “Well, there are quite a few ways to go about it,” he said. He sat down on the bed and coaxed Wynonna’s legs apart with gentle fingers, his movements almost absentminded as he traced curlicues up her thighs. “Guess it depends how much lube you have.”

            Dolls laughed. “You’re gonna be disappointed if you think you’re getting anywhere near my ass.” But as he spoke he walked around to the bedside table and pulled out a tub of lube. He tossed it on the bed, narrowly missing Wynonna’s leg and she frowned at him. “Sorry,” he said.

            Dolls crawled onto the bed and kissed her. He tasted different like this, like he’d taken some of Doc with him and now tasted of both of them.

            Wynonna’s thoughts cut off when Doc brushed his thumb over her clitoris, sending waves of unbidden desire through her body. She breathed heavily against Dolls’ lips and he backed off an inch, enough to look her in the eyes with all the wonder and worship that had slowly faded out of him every day since their wedding night.

            She groaned and closed her eyes as Doc’s fingers moved downwards, coaxing her open until he could slip his fingers inside. The wet press of the lube was cold around his broad, roughened fingers and she fought the urge to groan with his every movement, his every touch. A small part of her urged her to be shocked at Doc’s skill but the last of her logic shut that part down. After all, people paid him for this for a reason.

            When she arched off the bed, she felt Dolls’ hand pressing her back down into the bed. She whimpered, feeling the heat of his lips so close but so far away. His other hand crept up the length of her side and encircled her breast. He rubbed his thumb across the nipple and then squeezed slightly. She fought the urge to cry out like it was a sound of surrender, like she wouldn’t last if she opened her lips.

            Dolls body curled against her side. At some point, he’d discarded his underwear and the length of him brushed across her hip. His lips found her neck and sucked, wet and sloppy like they were teenagers who still gave each other hickeys. His hands cascaded over her breasts, her torso, finding her scars and touching them with gentle fingers, all while Doc worked her open with patient hands.

            Then Doc’s tongue swiped over her clitoris and she bucked hard enough to surprise even Dolls. He rolled away slightly and Wynonna’s eyes flickered open. Doc’s moustache brushed against her, rough and ticklish and like nothing she’d ever felt before. She scrambled for purchase, her hands reaching for Dolls, grabbing at his arms until he took her hands in his and brought them to his lips. He kissed them gently like they were sitting in a car at night looking at the stars, swearing their love. Not like another man was between her legs and doing things she hadn’t known were possible.

            Doc backed off and raised his head to look at her. His lips were red and smeared, his cheeks hot. One of his hands brushed the inside of her thigh and the other found Dolls’ leg. Looking down, Wynonna saw Dolls’ was so hard his cock was pulsing and Doc only made it worse by brushing his fingers down Dolls’ thigh, getting nowhere near close enough to offer relief.

            Wynonna sat up, her whole body still shaking, and pressed a kiss to Dolls’ shoulder. She reached around him and caught Doc’s fingers. Slowly, she brought both their hands towards Dolls’ dick and started to jack him off with a gentleness that made silent curses leave his lips. She pressed her lips against his neck, whispered soothing words in his ear, and watched Doc looking up at them with nothing but wonder.

            “Get up here,” Wynonna said, soft.

            Doc didn’t need to be coaxed or told twice. He rose and tilted her chin up to kiss her. The three of them fell back into bed together, Doc on top of Wynonna, both their hands still on Dolls’ length. Wynonna bunched her hands in the fabric of Doc’s boxers and then shoved them down his thighs with weak fingers.

            Doc took over the job, shifting his weight to allow himself to remove the last of the fabric between them. When his cock touched her stomach, her breath hitched. She met his eyes, found her own fears inside of them, and pushed the dark hair back from his eyes. She understood, finally, why this touch meant so much to Dolls. Just seeing more of Doc’s face, getting the opportunity to touch his skin, calmed her racing heart.

            “Condoms,” Wynonna said, remembering.

            Before she could move, Dolls had rolled over and reopened the drawer. He tossed one between her and Doc. Wynonna picked it up with shaking fingers and tore open the packaging. She couldn’t find the muscles to close her mouth, to stop her breathing from coming in gasps and pants.

            As she reached for Doc’s cock, she looked at Dolls. She wanted his explicit permission, wanted him to tell her that this was all right, that nothing was wrong at all. Instead of words, she got his fingers brushing the hair out of her eyes and his lips pressed to her cheek. She felt the last of her tension ebb away as her hand curled over Doc’s shaft and she rolled the condom on.

            For a moment, she’d thought that was all it would be. Doc would push into her and Dolls would lie beside them, watching, content. After all, he did say he liked taking care of them.

            But then Doc picked up the lube and pressed it against Dolls’ bare thigh. Even as Doc dipped his own fingers into the container to lube himself up, he met Dolls’ confused expression and said, “What? Do you really think we’re gonna let that monster of yours go to waste?”

            Dolls smiled but tried to hide it. “What do you want me to do?”

            “Surely you know the ropes,” Doc challenged.

            Dolls picked up the lube and disappeared from Wynonna’s view. She frowned, her eyes meeting Doc’s, and he smiled. “It’s all right, love,” he said. He bit down on his lip as she wrapped her fingers around his on his cock to help speed up the process. Humming cheerfully, he lowered his lips to hers and then gasped suddenly.

            Wynonna chuckled against the kiss, now having a pretty clear idea of where Dolls was.

            “Are you sure?” Doc whispered, pressing his nose against hers. She couldn’t see his eyes but could see the pursing of his lips, the rough way his throat fought against gasping. Doc brushed back her hair as gentle as he could while Dolls worked his fingers inside of him. “Do you really want this?”

            “Yes,” Wynonna said, no hesitation. “I want this and I want you and I want us. All three of us.”

            Doc smiled and then let out a breathless laugh. “Maybe you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said.

            Dolls laughed back. “Tell that to the sounds you’re making.”

            Shaking his head, Doc leaned in to kiss Wynonna again. He lined himself up with her opening and then slowly worked his way inside. Based on his control, on his trembling hands, Wynonna believed Dolls had stopped for a moment to let him have this, just this.

            She felt him inside her like a burn, like a fullness she hadn’t know she’d been waiting for. Yes, her heart had always been filled with holes, but instead of a missing piece, Doc was more like a healing balm on an open wound. He made all the holes feel like real parts of her, parts to cherish like anything else.

            He moaned into the kiss and then dropped his head to her shoulder as he settled in. Dolls’ hand came up across his back, massaging the hard lines of his knotted muscles, trying to relax him. “You okay?” he asked, his eyes shifting from the back of Doc’s head to Wynonna’s face.

            Wynonna nodded, not trusting her voice, not trusting her heart not to burst and send blood dribbling out between her lips.

            “Fine,” Doc said, his voice surprisingly steady. “Are you?”

            Dolls bit his lip to stop his chuckle and Wynonna smiled up at him. Dolls moved his hands to Doc’s hips and shifted closer to him. “You sure you’re ready?” A grunt of affirmation from Doc. Dolls considered a second longer and then said, “You’re sure you wanna do this?”

            “Fuck yes,” Doc hissed.

            Dolls managed only to muffle his laugh this time as he lined himself up. Doc pulled out of Wynonna not quite all the way and looked down at her. “This may hurt,” he said.

            “I’ll be careful,” Dolls said.

            “Do it,” Wynonna said.

            Dolls pushed into Doc and the action propelled Doc into Wynonna. She gasped, all the air in her lungs leaving her at once. Her hands curled into Doc’s hair, holding onto him for dear life. His lips worked sloppily against her neck, her collarbone, whatever he could reach. She tried to return the favour, to run her hands through his tangled hair, to rub his shoulders, to do anything other than dig her nails into his skin and try not to scream.

            Her eyes were wet with tears as he pounded into her with all the force of Dolls behind him. She could feel every tense muscle in his body, every breath he fought for. One of her hands fell to the sheets and Dolls caught it, twisting their fingers together. She looked up at him with a smile, seeing just edges of him through the mess of her and Doc’s hair.

            Her entire body throbbed with heat and want and desire. She could feel Doc sliding in and out of her, filling her and leaving her empty, making her skin heat up like it was on fire. She raised Dolls hand to her mouth and kissed his fingers, desperate to hold him close and make this moment last even as her vision turned blurry and pleasure buzzed through her whole body. She felt it like fireworks, like one steady build of pleasure bursting into a thousand different payoffs, her entire body alive with it, every nerve firing.

            And after the rush of orgasm had left her, her skin felt sticky with heat and sweat and her body felt sunken into the mattress. With every new thrust, she felt sparks of pleasure coming back, a match trying to light again. She wrapped an arm around the back of Doc’s neck and kissed his temple, breathing hard into each thrust. She tightened herself around him, hoping to help any way she could.

            Then she heard the stuttering of Dolls’ breath and looked up at him. His eyes had gone glassy, his face glistening with sweat. His fingers trembled in hers. Not their old war tremble but a new one. A good one. He bit down hard on his lip, trying to keep going for her, for Doc, and she smiled to let him know it was all right. She wished she had a little more room so she could touch his chest, run her fingers down his abs, coax the orgasm out of him.

            “You’re amazing,” she whispered, not sure which one of them she was talking to. “Just amazing.” The last two words were lost in a murmur as Doc’s hair cascaded over her lips.

            She felt his hips stutter, his resolve crack, and she brushed her fingertips over his reddened lips.

            He came with a violent tremble like his whole body had been held up by desire alone. For a brief moment, Wynonna though he might collapse on top of her, but Dolls caught him around the waist and pulled him up. Watching them above her, Doc’s head flung back over Dolls’ shoulder, his eyes closed, she felt fatigue fill her. But all the same, she found the strength to sit up and run her hands over the places where their hips connected. She pressed her lips to the soft flab of Doc’s stomach.

            Dolls’ breath failed him and then so did his control. He managed to keep both himself and Doc upright as he shallowly thrust through the waves of his orgasm. Then, with incredible tenderness, he pulled out and laid Doc down on his side. Doc’s breath was thin, his eyes flickering. Wynonna picked sweat-soaked hair off his forehead, let her fingers linger over his burning skin until he brought his lips to her palm and kissed it.

            Dolls sure fingers removed Doc’s condom and then his own. Wynonna was vaguely aware of Dolls walking around, cleaning up. A warm, wet washcloth brushed against her thighs and she opened her legs to let him wipe away the dripping dots of precome that had escaped before the condoms were on.

            Dolls pressed kisses to her lips, her nose, and her forehead. Then he slapped the washcloth against her thigh and said, “Up. Go to the bathroom.”

            Wynonna groaned. “Ten minutes.”

            He chuckled as he moved onto Doc, all his movements gentle against his rough skin. “Ten?” Dolls said. “You usually only need five.”

            “Sorry the force of both of you fucking me makes me a little weaker,” she bit back, no real venom in her tone.

            She groaned as Dolls pushed at her side and then her back, urging her towards the edge of the bed. “Pee,” he said. “The doctor already thinks you’ve had too many UTIs.”

            Wynonna flipped him off but got to her feet all the same. She did her business and then came back, stopping in the doorway. Dolls had gotten Doc to sit up and a glass of water into his hand. She could hear the threads of their whispered voices but nothing else. The looks in their eyes, the softness between them, was something she couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Her whole life had been boys and men fighting over her, people pulling her in two separate directions, no one caring that they could easily tear her apart. And yet here were two people who loved her who happened to love each other too.

            With a happy sigh, Wynonna bounced back onto the bed and curled up next to Doc. She took the glass from his hand and took a big sip of water.

            Dolls ran his hand down her thigh. “I got you your own glass.”

            She swallowed and shrugged. “Sharing is caring.”

            Shaking his head, Dolls tapped Doc on the thigh and said, “Your turn.”

            Doc rolled his eyes but stumbled out of bed, his legs weakened and even more bowed than they’d been before.

            Both Wynonna and Dolls watched him go, turning back to each other once the bathroom door closed. Wynonna set down the glass of water and shifted closer to Dolls. She placed her palms on his cheeks and whispered, “Tell me the truth. Are you happy we did that?”

            Dolls kissed her palms and gathered her hands in his. “Yes. Are you?”

            She nodded. “Are you happy in general?”

            “Happier than I can bear.” He kissed her then, light and soft and even though she wanted more, she let him pull away as she fell back into the pillows. He stood and pulled back the covers, letting her crawl under them. Brushing back her sweaty hair, he said, “Get some sleep. Remember to shower in the morning.”

            She wanted to mumble back something mean but sleep was already threatening to close her eyelids so she simply caught his hand and kissed his fingers again. “I love you,” she whispered. She didn’t hear if he loved her too.


	14. Doc

Doc woke to long, lingering bolts of sunlight shining into the room. He squinted up at the curtains and closed his eyes again, hoping that maybe the light would go away. Wynonna was huddled in the crook of his arm, the stillness of her sleep surprising him as he’d closed his eyes with her in almost the exact same position. In the night, Dolls’ arm had made its way around his waist, even though Dolls was hidden somewhere under the covers, curled up in a ball halfway down the bed. Just the top of his dark head peaked out from under the covers.

            Doc reached out and brushed his hand across Dolls’ smooth head. Doc’s eyes slowly opened again to the sunny room and the sleepy figures wrapped around him. Turning his head, he pressed a kiss to Wynonna’s hair, breathed in her lilac shampoo. Sometime around midnight she’d pulled herself out of bed and jumped in the shower. When she’d gotten out, she’d whispered something about McDonald’s and disappeared.

            Doc had woken again half an hour later to the smell of burgers and French fries. Dolls had rolled over in the sheets and blinked up at Wynonna. With the kind of laugh that shouldn’t be let out in the middle of the night, he’d said, “We never ate.”

            So at one in the morning, they’d sat in bed eating McDonald’s and debating the finer points of _Supernatural,_ a topic on which Dolls had a surprising wealth of knowledge. They’d fallen back into bed when the wrappers were discarded, kisses and hands everywhere but everyone too tired to really do anything about it. Wynonna had fallen onto Doc’s shoulder and Dolls had curled up against his pillow.

            “Morning,” Wynonna whispered now, her voice a throaty grumble. She kissed his bare chest and ran her fingers through the hair there, letting them get tangled. “What time is it?”

            Doc glanced towards the bedside table but if there was a clock that should have been there, it’d been knocked off during last night’s activities.

            Wynonna didn’t really seem to care though. She kept kissing his chest, running her fingers through his hair, her movements lazy and slow. Doc ran his fingers through her hair and sighed as her head dipped lower.

            Dolls’ head poked up from under the covers and he looked up at them sleepily. “Morning,” he said. His voice was like swallowing stones.

            “Hi,” Wynonna said. She leaned forward and kissed Dolls. He smiled into the kiss, pressed his hand to the back of her head and pulled her closer.

            The doorbell rang.

            “Ignore it,” Wynonna whispered.

            Doc was already sitting up. Her hand fell to his thigh, very close to his crotch.

            “Ignore it,” she repeated.

            He leaned forward and kissed her. “A momentary distraction,” Doc assured her as he clambered out of bed. He heard Wynonna groan as he pulled his boxers back on and when he turned back, she was curled up in Dolls’ arms again, her eyes closed once more.

            “Momentary,” Dolls reminded him even as he nuzzled his nose into the crook of Wynonna’s neck.

            Doc nodded and headed down the stairs. He breathed in the stale air, feeling the lazy fatigue of having stayed up too late and slept too long. As he passed the kitchen, he caught the time. 11:32. Thank god he and Wynonna had waited until the weekend to seduce Dolls.

            Doc rubbed his eyes as he reached for the doorknob. Pulling it open, he felt a burst of cool air and sighed.

            In front of him stood a small woman with light brown hair and a cute, heart-shaped face. She was cuddled into a big parka, her figure almost overwhelmed by it. Doc offered her a smile even as her jaw dropped.

            “Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice unsurprisingly shrill.

            Doc kept his smile in place. “I could ask you the same question.”

            “No, you could not. This is my _sister’s_ house.” She closed her mouth angrily, took a deep breath, and suddenly had a wealth of rage in her lungs. “How dare you. How _dare_ you! Xavier Dolls is a good, honest man and he does not deserve to have his wife fucking around on him with the likes of you! I can’t believe Wynonna would do this to him!”

            When she paused for breath, Doc was too lost to formulate a good defence.

            “Where is she?” the woman demanded. “Bring her here right this instance or I’ll—”

            “Is there a problem?” Dolls wrapped his arm around Doc’s waist and nudged himself into the doorway. When he saw the woman, he didn’t skip a beat, just said, “Hi, Waves.”

            “Hi, Waves?” she repeated. “Is there a problem? You bet your damn life there’s a problem! What the hell are you doing? You are _married_ to my sister. You cannot be using her house to have a... a... homosexual affair! Not that I care about the homosexual part, but seriously, Dolls! What is wrong with you? Where is Wynonna? Is she out chasing a bail jumper?” Waverly paused with a dramatic gasp. “Have you been sending her to AA meetings to get her out of the house so _he_ can come over?”

            Dolls chuckled and took a step back. “Wynonna’s in the kitchen. Come in.” He pulled Doc out of the doorway too to allow a confused and now speechless Waverly to enter the house.

            Doc shot Dolls a glance, hoping for some sign of what exactly he should expect out of this little visit, but Dolls just shook his head. The two of them led Waverly back to the kitchen where she pulled off her pink gloves in a huff and shrugged off her parka. Crossing her arms, she said, “What the hell is this?” She waved her hand at Doc and Dolls.

            Wynonna looked up from her stirring – Doc assumed she was making pancake batter but he couldn’t be sure – and said, “Hi, Waves.”

            “Don’t ‘hi, Waves’ me. Your husband already ‘hi, Waves’d me. Tell me what is going on. Why is there a strange naked man in your house?”

            Wynonna snorted and looked up at Doc in apology. Pulling the wooden spoon out of the batter, she licked the tip and said, “Waverly meet Doc. Doc meet Waverly.”

            “My pleasure,” Doc said, going to tip his hat before he realized he wasn’t wearing it. He offered Waverly his hand instead which she shook while regarding him like he was a ghost of some sort. “I’ve heard much about you.”

            “Don’t believe any of it coming from these two,” Waverly said. She looked back at Wynonna. “And Doc is here at noon in his underwear because?”

            Wynonna glanced at Dolls.

            Dolls cleared his throat and said, “Doc lives with us.”

            “What?”

            “He’s our...”

            “Boyfriend,” Doc supplied.

            Dolls shrugged. “Sure, boyfriend.”

            Waverly stared at Dolls blankly for a long moment and then turned her gaze back to Wynonna. “Please tell me you didn’t convince sweet, innocent Dolls to bring another man into your bedroom because you were bored.”

            Doc covered his laugh with a cough.

            Wynonna did not. “Please. Dolls has probably handled more dicks than I have.”

            Dolls flipped her off.

            “Besides,” Wynonna continued, “it’s not like we started out looking for a boyfriend. It just kinda... happened.”

            “How on earth does a married couple find a boyfriend by accident?”

            Wynonna pursed her lips around the wooden spoon. Dolls looked at his feet. Doc met Waverly’s curious and judgemental gaze without blinking, thinking that maybe he liked this new fiery Earp, even if she seemed to hate him.

            When no one said anything for a good minute, Doc said, “I’m a hooker.”

            Waverly laughed. “Dammit, are none of you going to take me seriously?”

            “Willa told me to hire a hooker to fix my marriage,” Wynonna said. She shrugged and whipped the spoon around. “And, stupid me, I was drunk and sleep deprived and I listened to her. But it worked. So who am I to judge?”

            Waverly’s mouth hung open for a moment before she closed it and swallowed. She gave Doc another sideways look which he greeted with a smile. Then, fixing her beady gaze on Wynonna, she said, “Let me get this straight. Because _Willa_ told you too, our sister Willa, whom we hate, you hired a hooker to save your marriage, invited him into your bedroom, and made him your boyfriend?”

            Wynonna considered for a moment and then shrugged. “Not quite the order of events but that’s the gist of it.”

            “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

            Wynonna shrugged again and went back to stirring the batter.

            Dolls cut in before the fight could get any worse. “I think we should clarify and say we’re not using Doc to fix our relationship. Doc just happens to fit really well with us and a lot of our problems seem more surmountable with him around. He gives Wynonna an outlet for her crazy. He’s good at calming me down. We work as a unit better than we ever worked alone as a couple.” Dolls swallowed hard and shot Doc a hopeful look. “So, Waverly, you’re welcome to have a problem with it, but it’s not going to change the fact that he’s going to be in our lives from now on.”

            Dolls caught Doc’s hand and raised it to his lips to kiss his knuckles. Doc nudged closer to him, smiling, his heart feeling warmer than it had in a while.

            Waverly sighed. “I’m a liberal prosecutor in a lesbian marriage. I’m not gonna shit on polyamory.” Her words were disputed by her grumbling tone.

            Wynonna turned on the mixer and little spatters of dough went everywhere. Dolls grabbed it from her, turned it off, and kissed her on the head. He whispered something and she backed off with her hands raised in surrender, only looking offended until he’d turned away from her. Then a smirk lit her lips and she met Doc’s eyes. She put a finger to her lips, urging him to be quiet.

            Leaping up to sit on the counter, Wynonna fixed Waverly with her gaze again and said, “Why are you even here?” she said. “Our barely-speaking truce really doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that comes with unannounced lunchtime visits.”

            Waverly suddenly looked awkward, like the words reminded her that she had barged into another person’s life. Her fingers twisted around the handle of her briefcase as she looked at her feet. “I’m here because...” she trailed off and then looked at Wynonna with a sigh. “I miss you. Okay? I miss you a lot and Nicole told me you were the one who got her to come back and I... I don’t want to be mad at you anymore. You’re my big sister. The only big sister I actually like.”

            “Aww,” Wynonna said, her tone mocking even though there were tears in her eyes. She slipped off the counter and wrapped Waverly in a tight hug. “I love you too, baby girl.” She pulled back. “I am sorry about everything I said to Nicole before. And about making the separation happen. And just... everything.”

            Waverly shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”

            “Pancakes?” Wynonna offered.

            Waverly nodded and slipped onto a stool at a counter. “I’m also here, today, instead of like three weeks ago, because Nicole told me Dolls is investigating Willa.”

            “What?” Wynonna whipped around to look at him.

            Dolls held up one hand in surrender, the other busy holding the mixer steady. “I am not investigating Willa,” he said, steady. “I’m investigating Bobo and Willa just keeps getting in the way.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “It means...” Dolls trailed off with a sigh as he turned off the mixer.

            As he got more distracted cooking, Doc supplied, “Bobo’s smart. Most likely all his assets, all the public parts of his business, are linked back to Willa instead of him. If he’s really smart, then all the illegal stuff will link back to her too.”

            Wynonna shook her head. “Why would she allow that? Why would she sign those things?”

            “Bobo probably got to her young enough that she didn’t know what she was signing and now she’s so dependent on him for everything, credits him for saving her life even, that she’ll do anything for him. Anything at all.”

            Wynonna cursed under her breath.

            “Wait,” Waverly said, “how do you know so much about this?”

            Doc blinked at her and then slowly turned back to Dolls.

            Dolls kept his back to them, his attention on the pancakes. “Doc’s the one who broke the case,” he said. “He told Narcotics that the drug cartel we thought we were busting was actually a sex-trafficking ring.”

            “He’s a CI?” Waverly said, all the judgement back in her voice.

            “Not technically,” Doc said.

            “But he’s still the star witness,” she snapped. Her eyes must have been boring holes in Dolls’ back. “He cracked this case for you. He told you where you needed to look. Dolls!” He glanced over his shoulder when she slapped her hands down on the counter. “Do you have any fucking clue how hard this is going to be to prosecute when you are _sleeping with_ one of the defendant’s hookers?”

            “Don’t put me on the stand, then.”

            “You’re the lead officer on the case.”

            “I’ll give everything to Nicole. She’s Vice anyways.”

            Waverly shook her head and sighed. “And when the defence asks why I won’t put the other detective on the case on the stand? When the defence tears apart _how the hell_ you came to know about the sex trafficking? When they accuse the two of you of making this whole thing up as a way to get revenge against your wife’s sister’s abuser? What then? What do you expect me to say?”

            “I expect you to say ‘Detective Xavier Dolls is a good, honest cop and would not let his personal relationships colour his view of a case.’”

            Waverly stared at him.

            Into the silence, Doc said, “So that’s what your real name is.”

            “Are you fucking kidding me?” Waverly burst out. With a disgruntled sigh, she picked her briefcase back up and started for the door.

            “Hey!” Wynonna called. “I thought we were good!”

            “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at him because he should _know better_.”

            “It’s not gonna make a difference!” Dolls exclaimed. He turned away from the stove and wiped his fingers on a dishtowel. When Waverly turned back to glare at him, he explained, “All our evidence is against Willa. And we’re not gonna ask you to prosecute Willa when she’s the victim here.”

            “Maybe you should,” Waverly said. “Whether or not they’re actually her crimes, you can’t tell me you honestly believe she’s innocent in all of this. She’s not an idiot. She just likes to pretend she is so she can continue to manipulate the two of you.”

            “She was a child when she met Bobo, Waves,” Wynonna said, her voice soft. She stepped forward and laid a hand on Waverly’s arm. “You’re right that we can’t assume she’s innocent, but we can’t assume that this is who she really is either. Who knows what he’s done to her, what he taught her to be versus who she actually is. We can’t send her to jail for his crimes.”

            Waverly ripped her arm out of Wynonna’s grip. “Stop defending her. She doesn’t deserve it.”

            “Waves!” Wynonna started down the hallway after her sister.

            Doc glanced towards Dolls, looking for some sort of cue on whether or not he should get in between them. Dolls shook his head even though he seemed worried and watched them down the hall instead of going back to cooking. They stayed in the kitchen in relative silence, hearing bits and pieces of the women’s conversation without being able to piece it together. Then came the sound of the door closing and Dolls turned back to the pancakes.

            Doc met Wynonna’s eyes when she re-entered the room. He held out his hand and she took it, let him pull her to his side. She fit so well under his arm and he hoped she felt safe there, felt like the world wasn’t so scary when he was at her side.

            Wynonna sniffed and looked up at Dolls. “What can we do?”

            “Do about what?”

            “Bobo,” she said. “How can we get Bobo sent to jail instead of Willa?”

            Dolls shook his head. “I... You don’t understand. Everything is in Willa’s name. The buildings, the websites, even the tax returns we could get our hands on. As far as this investigation is concerned, Bobo doesn’t even exist. He doesn’t even have contact with the other prostitutes we can prove are part of the organization. And no one will talk to us about Bobo. They don’t mention Willa either but... without some sort of confirmation that he’s even part of this, any charges would have to be against Willa.”

            Wynonna stepped out from under Doc’s arm and started to pace the kitchen. Dolls watched her out of the corner of his eye but continued to set up breakfast. Doc, at a loss for anything else to do, started to set the table.

            It was a long few minutes before Wynonna said, “What if we could get her to testify?”

            “What?” Dolls said.

            “What if Willa testified against Bobo? Told the court he made her sign those things.”

            Dolls shook his head. “It’s her word against his and all the evidence is on his side.”

            “And he wouldn’t hesitate to throw her under the bus,” Doc said.

            “But she’s the _victim_ ,” Wynonna said. “He met her when she was a kid and he was a grown man! You can’t tell me the system is going to push that aside like it’s nothing.”

            “If you could get her to start her story like that,” Dolls said, “then maybe we’d have a chance. But Willa’s been singing the same song for years, telling everyone that she and Bobo started their physical relationship once she hit the age of consent. So even if you could get her to admit the truth, unless she has concrete proof—”

            “You’re telling me my sister has to have concrete proof she was raped?”

            Dolls pursed his lips.

            “The system isn’t as good as we’d like to think, Wy,” Doc said. He didn’t move even though he wanted to touch her, to give her some sort of comfort. She looked like a wild animal just then, unknowable and unapproachable. “The defence will throw any number of things in her face. And it’s all up to the jury at that point. Whether or not they believe her. And this hinges on the long shot that she agrees to say a single word against him.”

            “She will,” Wynonna said.

            “She won’t,” Doc said. “You know she won’t.”

            Wynonna deflated slightly. Dolls walked up to her, put a gentle hand on her back and guided her towards the kitchen table. He set down the food and the three of them started to eat in uncomfortable silence.

            “I can try,” Wynonna said when she was halfway through a pancake and drawing patterns in the syrup with her fork. “Let me talk to her. Let me try to get her to see the benefits of telling the truth.”

            “You really want to tell Willa I’ve been investigating Bobo?” Dolls said.

            Wynonna shrugged. “Not like she can talk to me any less.”

            Doc licked his lips. “You shouldn’t go alone. Willa’s... unstable, at best.”

            “Come with me, then,” she said.

            Doc laughed. “She hates me. More than the others.”

            “Dolls, then,” Wynonna said, staring at her husband across the table. There was a challenge in her raised eyebrow, in the stone cold look she gave him. “But you have to promise to shut up and not get in my way.”

            Dolls nodded. “Whatever you need.”


	15. Dolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So all those warnings up there in the tags? This is the chapter they mostly pertain to. It's messy, it's intense, it's a little scary. Please take the time to consider if you can handle it and know that I completely understand if you can't. Take care of yourselves <3

Dolls felt odd walking up to Willa’s house. He had been there only a handful of times and it had been early on in his relationship with Wynonna. So early on that they hadn’t even been dating. In fact, the last time he’d spoken to Willa it had been part of a routine background check on all the bounty hunters working in the area.

            Wynonna rang the doorbell and waited. Her eyes were fixed on the green door as her foot tapped against the concrete step. After only half a minute, she rang the bell again and muttered something about Willa sleeping late. Dolls nodded and took her word for it. If it hadn’t been for Doc’s insistence, he wouldn’t have come at all. Willa was Wynonna’s sister and they spoke often. Even if she was upset, Dolls couldn’t imagine things getting dangerous.

            But he remembered Doc’s hand on his shoulder before he left the house. He remembered Doc saying, “Willa’s an angel until she’s not. If you push her, she’ll burn you.”

            Dolls shook off his fears and watched as Wynonna started to push the bell repeatedly. Just as he reached to pull back her hand, the door opened wide to reveal Willa, just as Dolls remembered her. Older, sure, and the circles under her eyes were darker, but the same broken shell with a painted exterior smiled out at them.

            Willa pulled the blanket around her shoulders tighter and said, “What a pleasant surprise. Come in, come in.” She reached for Wynonna’s hand and led her sister inside the small house. Dolls closed the door behind them and followed at a safe distance.

            The house had more changes than Willa herself. Instead of the threadbare furniture Dolls’ remembered, everything was cream and well maintained. The tables were glass and steel, the paintings on the walls large and abstract, and the rugs on the pockmarked wood floor looked hand-woven. If Dolls had walked in not knowing whose house it was, he’d have thought a child picking at random from a catalogue had pulled all their favourite pieces together with no sense of style.

            Willa sat Wynonna at the kitchen table – a small coffee table with vibrant magenta cushions around it – and gestured for Dolls to sit as well. She left then, promising drinks and snacks, and started to hum in the other room.

            For the first time, Wynonna met his eyes. “This is just what she’s like,” she said, her voice tense but steady. “Nothing to worry about.”

            “When’s the last time you were here?” Dolls asked.

            Wynonna shrugged. “A couple weeks ago? But I haven’t spoken to her since... well, Doc.”

            “Doc?” Willa returned with a large grey teapot and set it down on a floral pot holder. “Is that who you ended up going with?” She laughed as she turned to leave the room again. “You’re so predictable, Wynonna.”

            Something about the words sent a chill through Dolls’ spine. If Wynonna really was so predictable – and he’d said it himself, he’d picked Doc for Wynonna the second he saw him – then had Willa and Bobo set them up? But why? There had been no real investigation into them before Doc had showed up. Their names had been at the back of Dolls’ mind as his unfortunate in-laws and the drug bust was in progress but there were no drugs.

            Wynonna took his hand under the table and squeezed. “Doc’s on our side,” she whispered in an almost reproachful tone.

            Dolls squeezed her fingers and said nothing.

            Willa came back with three delicate tea cups dangling from her fingers and a platter of fruit in her other hand. She set everything down and then neatly folded herself onto the cushion across from Wynonna. Smiling, she said, “Forgive the spread. I’m a bit of a vegan kick these days and fruit is pretty much all I have in the house.”

            Wynonna and Dolls smiled back, tight-lipped. Dolls let his eyes slide away from Willa’s face to the figure she was so carefully hiding under the thick blanket. He said, “Is it cold in here? Do you wanna turn up the heat a bit?”

            “I’m fine,” Willa said. Her smile was all teeth as she raised a teacup to her lips. “Help yourselves.”

            Dolls reached for the teapot and Wynonna popped a grape in her mouth. As he poured the tea, Dolls recognized the sensation he was feeling. It was the same feeling that came over him every time he was in the presence of a calm and practiced criminal. The feeling that their sins were palpable in the air even as they smiled and spoke of their children and their dogs and all the people they loved in the world. Willa had the same feel to her but with a sickly edge like she herself noticed what was wrong about it and had starved herself into it.

            “Is this just a social call?” Willa said. “Or are you here to berate me for telling your wife to hire a prostitute?”

            Dolls glanced at Wynonna but she had eyes only for Willa.

            Willa sighed. “Or are you here to admit you killed him? Doc? Bobo’s been wondering what he’s gotten up to and seeing as he hasn’t been answering his phone... not that he ever did...”

            “Doc’s fine,” Dolls said.

            Willa’s eyes flashed as they landed on his face. “Good to hear. Ask him to call his boss for me.”

            Dolls ground his teeth.

            Wynonna squeezed his hand tighter under the table. “Willa, we’re here on official business. Dolls thought that I might have an easier time talking to you than he would.” She licked her lips. “Is Bobo here?”

            “Hasn’t been for two days.”

            “We need to ask you about his business.”

            Willa raised an eyebrow and set her teacup down. “The hookers? It’s perfectly legal to sell sex on this side of the border. You know that.”

            “We believe he’s trafficking underage girls through one of the Billings’ warehouses.” Dolls tried to keep track of her expression but it was hauntingly blank like no emotion had ever touched it and no emotion ever would. “If that wasn’t bad enough, we believe he’s also using the girls to smuggle drugs. A two in one deal. We have enough evidence to support this.”

            “Then why not arrest him?” she said. “Or do you not know where he is either?”

            “Everything’s in your name, Willa.” Dolls waited for recognition to cross her features but it never did. “All the evidence we have is against you.”

            She hesitated a moment before spreading her arms across the table, fists clenched, wrists pressed together. “Then cuff me, officer.”

            “Detective,” Dolls corrected before he could stop himself.

            Wynonna pushed her sister’s arms down. “We don’t have a warrant. Yet.” She grabbed Willa’s hand and their fingers twisted together in what looked more like an arm wrestling match waiting to happen than any sort of sisterly affection. A muscle twitched in Wynonna’s jaw and Dolls could tell Willa was fighting her. Wynonna exhaled a sigh and said, “We don’t want to arrest you, Willa. We know none of this is your fault.”

            “How? My name is on everything.”

            “Because Bobo’s the criminal here. He’s the one the hooker’s know. The one they get assignments from.”

            Willa shrugged. “I route info through Bobo.” A cruel smile ran across her lips. “Besides, I’m sure your dear Doc would be able to tell you a lot about me too. More than he could tell you about his supposed boss, anyways.”

            “You can’t want to go down for this,” Wynonna said. “Not when it’s all Bobo’s mess, Bobo’s crimes. You can’t tell me you want to spend _decades_ in jail because some asshole who molested you—”

            “He _never_ molested me!”

            “Bullshit!” Wynonna slammed her hand down on the table and the teacups rattled. “No one believes that, Willa! No one’s ever believed that! But you keep insisting, keep pushing, keep protecting him! And for what? What the fuck has he ever done for you, Willa, other than set you up for a fall?”

            “He saved me!” Willa shouted but her voice lacked the anger of Wynonna’s, lacked the all-out fury that Dolls had expected. Instead it held a shake to it, a desperation, like just raising her voice was a reason to start crying. “I was alone and scared and on a bus halfway across the country and he saved me! He gave me a purpose and a family—”

            “You had a family! You fucking left us!”

            “You killed our father!”

            Wynonna’s lip trembled and when she spoke again, her voice was much quieter but just as lethal. “He deserved to die.”

            Willa shook her head. “You’re not the one who gets to decide that.”

            A tear left Wynonna’s eyes and, uncharacteristically, she let it fall. “I did it for you.” She sniffed but somehow managed to hold her sister’s glare. “You did everything for us, everything to protect us, all with a smile on your face. And I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t let you run around pretending the world was yours, pretending everything was okay, when I could tell it was taking every ounce of your strength not to scream at night.”

            Wynonna’s fingers held Dolls’ hand in a vice grip but he didn’t dare so much as shift his weight. He had heard the story a hundred times before. Waverly had been away on a sleepover. Willa had gone for a walk, alone, at night. Wynonna had stolen a cigarette from the box her dad kept over the mantle and tried to light it with a match. She had no idea how easily the house would go up in smoke.

            “He never did a thing to me, you know,” Wynonna said, her voice shaking. “Not once. And that was because you stood in the way and you took it all, knowing if you didn’t, he’d come after me and Waves. I loved him because he never hurt me. But I still killed him. And I did it for you because you did everything for us.” She shrugged as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. “And you ran away.”

            “Maybe I didn’t want to do it again,” Willa said. “Maybe after protecting you for so long, I didn’t want to play at mother.”

            “I would have understood that. Hell, I do understand that. You think it was easy raising Waverly all those years? You think it was easy fighting to keep the foster homes from splitting us up when all I did was get into fights and get thrown into juvie and everyone thought I was a horrible influence on her?”

            “Maybe you were.”

            “Hey—” Dolls began but Wynonna held up a shaking hand to stop him.

            She let her hand drop. “Maybe,” she agreed. She reached for Willa’s hand again but Willa pulled back violently. “Maybe Waverly would have been better off without me. Maybe she still is. Maybe she’s always going to be better off without knowing the whole story. Maybe she’s always going to be better off hating you.”

            Wynonna swallowed hard and Dolls wanted to stop her. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss the top of her head and whisper that everything was going to be okay. He didn’t want to be sitting here helplessly watching every story he’d ever been told unravel into an even worse mess. The kind of mess that maybe he could believe was worth drinking oneself into a stupor for.

            “But don’t forget I know everything.” Wynonna wrapped a hand around the teacup and Dolls could imagine that the fading heat was of little comfort. “Don’t forget that, knowing everything, I watched you come back into town with Bobo at your hip. I watched you disappear from my life, walk away from your family, walk away from a man who claimed to love you and only hurt you. And then I watched you walk right back into everything you hated with the same man at your hip.”

            “Bobo is not dad.”

            “He is. He’s exactly the same.”

            “He never touched me.”

            With shaking hands, Wynonna reached across the table and gently removed the blanket from around Willa’s shoulders. Her pale skin was purple and blue with bruises. Her bones would have been visible had her veins not been such a bright blue.

            Dolls flinched. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

            “Bobo will be back,” Willa said. She grabbed for the edges of the blanket but her fingers couldn’t seem to lift the heavy fabric. “He’ll want me here when he returns.”

            “Don’t do this, Willa. Don’t keep lying for him.” Wynonna took a deep breath. “No one blames you for the things you’ve done. No one is going to hurt you for them. I know Bobo’s told you he’s the only one who can protect you, the only one who can save you, but it’s not true. We’re here. We’re going to protect you. We’re going to protect you from him.”

            “But you haven’t.”

            Wynonna flinched.

            “If you knew, if the whole time you knew, if you were always worried, then why have you never reached out before?” Willa’s voice was ice. “Why have you treated me like a pariah? Made fun of my decisions? Let Waverly rip into me like all of this is my fault if you honestly believe otherwise? Why, Wynonna, if you believe me to be some sort of victim, have you always treated me like the villain?”

            “That’s not fair,” Dolls said. He wanted to say more, to defend Wynonna any way he could, but he couldn’t find the evidence. Willa had always been at best an annoyance to them and at worst an embarrassment. Until the investigation, he couldn’t think of a single moment when either of them had shown her an ounce of sympathy.

            Wynonna, however, finally seemed to have found herself again. Her face red with tears, her voice shaky with the remnants of emotion, she said, “The last time I saved you, you ran away from me and I didn’t know who you would find next if I went after Bobo. I didn’t know who you would think you deserved next if Bobo was gone. So I thought if I knew who to keep an eye on, if I kept you at an arm’s length, maybe that would stop me from losing you again.”

            “But it didn’t, did it?”

            “Not at all.”

            The two women stared at each other for a long moment. Then Willa sighed and said, “Maybe you should stay at an arm’s length.”

            “This isn’t a game anymore, Willa. Look at yourself. Look at the evidence the police have gathered if you want. You can stay here and you can do this to yourself until you wind up in jail and it happens all over again until you’re shanked or released back into the arms of the man who cared so little for you that he let you rot. Or you can break the cycle, you can come with us to the hospital, and you can give an official statement against him. You’re worth more than this, Willa. You are not this person.”

            Willa shook her head. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

            “I don’t care.”

            “You don’t care? You don’t care that I’ve ushered those girls off shipping crates and into warehouses filled with chains? You don’t care that I’ve fed them things to help them sleep? You don’t care that I’ve delivered them to Bobo’s bed?”

            Wynonna shook and Dolls reached for her, knowing he wouldn’t be able to steady her now. She shook her head. “You were brainwashed. He did this to you.”

            “He did nothing to me,” Willa insisted. “I wanted to help him. I begged him to let me.”

            Wynonna started to cry in earnest and even Willa lost her impeccable control.

            “He wanted to keep me away from it but I wormed my way in. I asked to help. I streamlined the procedure, forged the documents, _I_ hurt those girls more than he ever did.” She swallowed hard but it didn’t stop the tears. “Even if Bobo goes to jail, I should be right there at his side. I deserve to spend the rest of my life in prison.”

            Wynonna shook her head. “No. No, Willa. You don’t.”

            “I do! He took me in, he gave me shelter, but I was already a monster! I already wanted to hurt them, wanted to hurt everyone! He didn’t make me that way. He didn’t do a damned thing! I was already so broken, Wynonna. He couldn’t have made it any worse.”

            “You protected us,” Wynonna said. “Why protect us and then hurt them? It doesn’t make any sense.”

            “I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t. Whether I did something or not, whether or not I stood in their way.” Willa started to shake her head, her whole body trembling. Her eyes were far away and clouded over. “Whether or not I screamed. No matter what I did, no matter what I tried, he still... he still went for the others. I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t. I did everything. I did anything. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

            “Willa,” Dolls said, gently, “are you saying you’re with Bobo so he doesn’t hurt anyone else?”

            Willa looked over at him and he saw nothing. Not the broken girl shaking in front of him, not Wynonna’s rough and tumble sister, not the woman from the police reports. He saw only her empty eyes and the shell she’d wrapped around herself like armour. There was nothing left inside, nothing poison hadn’t touched.

            “It didn’t work,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I crawled into his bed time and time again. I stepped in front of the other girls and offered myself. I... I offered to help him, to stick with him, to give him anything, everything, my name, my signature... I just wanted him to stop. I wanted them to stop screaming.”

            Willa broke into heavy sobs, her entire body crumbling and shaking so hard Dolls was afraid her brittle bones would break. Wynonna got up on shaking feet and went over to her sister. She wrapped her arms around her and sobbed into the crook of her shoulder.

            Dolls wanted to leave them like that, wanted to give them their moment, but the cop in him took over. “Willa,” he said softly. And then, a little louder, “Willa.” She looked up at him. “Willa, I need to know how old you were the first time Bobo touched you.”

            “Fourteen,” she managed.

            Dolls nodded and held her eyes until they dropped again. It took an uncomfortably long moment for her to do so, for her to remember that she was safe and it was okay to cry.

            Dolls stood up and walked out of the kitchen. He made it to the far side of the living room and hoped the house’s acoustics weren’t very good. He dialed 911, gave his name and badge number, and said, “I need an ambulance at 49 Pine Street. I have a severely emotionally and physically abused woman. Be advised her husband is not in the house and has not been home for two days.”

            He hung up when the rest of the information had been given, including the case he was working and what other officers may want to be notified. Then he stared at his blank phone screen for a moment before pressing a shaking finger to Doc’s name.

            Doc picked up on the second ring, practically a miracle. “How are things going?”

            “Terribly,” Dolls breathed out. He heard the shake in his own voice and he sat down before it could make its way through his body. “Did you know... any of it? Any of the truth?”

            Doc was silent for a moment, his rough breaths making their way down the line. “I imagine I knew some but not all of it.” He paused. “Do you need me?”

            “Yes.” Dolls said the word without hesitating.

            “I’ll be right there.”

            “Wait,” Dolls said, hating how his voice cracked over the word, hating how hard it was for him to breathe. When the call didn’t cut off and Doc didn’t say anything more, Dolls whispered, “Stay on the line?”

            “Of course.”


	16. Wynonna

Wynonna only left Willa’s side once the drugs had knocked her out. And even then, seeing her so weak and pliable, it made Wynonna’s stomach knot to be ushered from the room by a nurse. She nodded at the officer seated outside the door – a young woman she didn’t know but Dolls had assured her was one of their top people – and headed down the hall. She crossed her arms and pulled her sweater tighter around her body, forever grateful to Doc for bringing warm clothes, coffee, and a seemingly endless supply of patience.

            Wynonna stopped just outside the waiting room. Inside, Doc and Dolls sat on one of the plastic-cushioned couches. Dolls had fallen asleep on Doc’s shoulder, his lips parted, his chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. Doc had a newspaper in one hand and a pencil in the other but he seemed to be making more progress on chewing through the pencil than on whatever crossword puzzle he was doing.

            Walking up to them, Wynonna nudged Doc’s leg with the tip of her boot. He looked up with a smile and whispered, “He passed out after he got through all the police stuff. I think this case really took a toll on him.”

            Nodding, Wynonna sank into the chair next to Doc. She leaned her head onto his other shoulder and sighed. “Did he tell you everything?”

            “He didn’t think it was his place to tell.”

            Wynonna hesitated a moment and then told the story as simply as possible. She didn’t pussy-foot around the parts she used to leave out with Dolls. The story stretched from the night before the fire all the way to that afternoon with Willa and when she was done, Wynonna found it hard to reconcile her uneven breathing with her dry cheeks. Doc ran his fingers through her hair, silent, comforting.

            “Were you one of them?” Wynonna said, not wanting the answer. “Were you young when Bobo got you?”

            Doc pulled back to look in her eyes. There was a gentle smile on his lips as he whispered, “Bobo’s only a handful of years older than I am. So unless you think a fifteen year-old was running a sex-trafficking ring...” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “My career is my own doing. It was fun when I was young, easy, still is. It paid the bills and that was all I was ever concerned with.”

            “You know Dolls will never let you keep doing it.”

            “I think it’s time I got out of the game anyways. Maybe I’ll be the housewife you two so desperately need.”

            Wynonna laughed and the sound scraped against her raw throat. When silence fell between them again, Wynonna focused on the sounds of the waiting room instead of on continuing a painful conversation. There were parents whispering to each other, people snoring, and little kids doing their best to quietly crash their toy trucks. Wynonna watched them with weary eyes. The kids were smiling, happy, only frowning when their parents deemed them too loud and shushed them. She wondered if they knew why they were there, who was hurt or sick or dying.

            “They took him to the hospital first. My dad.” Wynonna kept her eyes on the kids as she spoke. “Severe burns. His lungs... weren’t working. Willa dealt with the doctors without even shedding a tear and... and even though now I never would have expected her to cry, back then... I couldn’t fathom her being that heartless. He was still our dad.”

            “He was never that to her,” Doc said.

            Wynonna nodded. Then the words slipped out, unbidden. “Dolls wants kids. Always has.”

            “Why don’t you have any?”

            She shrugged, shook her head. “How could we?” She turned to meet Doc’s eyes and wanted to cry all over again at how calm he looked, how easily he readied himself to control her breakdown. She hated herself like this – weak and teary-eyed and unable to escape her past – but he still loved her. They both did. She continued, “I never knew my mother. I killed my father. Dolls... he loved his parents but... they’re gone. They’ve been gone for a while. And now you. You never had parents. How the fuck are the three of us supposed to raise a kid?”

            Doc pulled her into his chest and kissed the top of her head. “We are not our parents,” he said. “Any kid would be lucky to have you and Dolls as parents. Really fucking lucky.”

            Wynonna tried to find the words to respond to that, the words to ask if he’d be part of it, if he even wanted kids, how he thought he’d be as a dad. She wondered how messed up their kid would be with three parents. She wondered if maybe they’d be better off because, if nothing else, that kid would have three people who loved it unconditionally.

            Just as she thought she had the right words, Dolls’ phone started to ring and he jolted awake. Scrambling, he picked up his phone and said, “Hello?” After a few seconds, he let out a long-suffering sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, yeah. I’m there. Give me twenty minutes.”

            He stood and looked blearily at Doc and Wynonna. He forced a smile. “I gotta go back to the station, answer some questions about the investigation. I’ll try to be back but I might just meet you guys at the house?”

            Wynonna nodded and pulled away from Doc. Getting to her feet, she gave Dolls a hug and rested her head against his chest. The weight of his hand against her head felt like coming home. “Thanks,” she said. “For everything.”

            “Anything for you,” he said. He kissed her forehead but didn’t quite let her go. Looking over at Doc, he said, “I’m gonna need to know if you’re willing to testify against Bobo.”

            “Anything for you,” Doc teased, a mocking smile on his lips.

            Dolls gestured him over and Doc joined their hug. Wynonna felt warm pressed between the two of them even if her stomach was empty and dry from all the crying. For a moment, just a moment, tucked between their chests, she felt like everything would have to be okay.

            Dolls kissed both of them goodbye and then left the waiting room. Wynonna curled herself back into Doc’s arms, let him bring her back to the couch. She itched to go back to Willa’s room, just to check on her, but there was nothing she could do there and the nurses would probably remind her once again that Willa needed her rest.

            An hour drifted by in almost sleep, reading the subtitles of the TV above, and pretending to let Doc teach her poker. When she crushed him in the first round, shrugged and said, “Beginner’s luck,” he’d replied, “Bullshit,” and didn’t go easy on her the next round.

            They were in the middle of placing their bets, Wynonna smirking as Doc narrowed his eyes and tried to tell whether or not she was bluffing, when Waverly walked into the waiting room.

            “What happened?” she said. She looked fresh off work, still buttoned into a maroon suit with a pink shirt underneath. Her hair had been pulled from its ponytail and hung loosely over one shoulder. “I just got Nicole’s messages. Willa’s in the hospital? She’s... she’s been beaten?”

            The catch in Waverly’s breath almost made Wynonna lose it again. But she went into big sister mode instead and wrapped Waverly in her arms. She let her little sister sob against her shoulder, nodded when Doc mumbled something about getting coffee, and carefully led Waverly to a chair.

            Brushing the hair out of Waverly’s face, Wynonna said, “Willa’s going to be fine. She’s a little beaten up but the doctors don’t think there’s any internal damage so—”

            “I hated her,” Waverly whispered. Tears caught on her eyelashes and fell whenever she blinked. “I hated her for leaving us and for coming back with Bobo and... for everything. And this whole time she’s been... I’m just the worst person, aren’t I?”

            “No, no, you’re not.” Wynonna brushed the tears off Waverly’s cheeks. “You couldn’t have known.”

            “Because I refused to speak to her.”

            “You didn’t know the whole story,” Wynonna said, “and I never wanted you to have to know the whole story. But, I guess, if you’re going to prosecute this case, you’ll have to know it anyways. And it’s better you hear it from me.”

            “What?”

            Wynonna took a deep breath and told the story again. She’d spent decades telling a version of the truth, the simplest lie she could think of, and in one day, she’d told the real story three times. Once for Willa and Dolls, once for Doc, and now for the last person in the world she had ever wanted to know it. Not that she’d ever wanted Dolls to find out either. She’d half expected him to cuff her when he’d pulled her back from the ambulance. Instead, he’d said, “He deserved to die,” and left it at that.

            When the story was over, Wynonna sat holding Waverly’s hands for a long time. The silence stretched between them like the whole wide world was separating them. Then Waverly blinked and looked up, meeting Wynonna’s eyes with a kind of sudden horror.

            “That’s why you said those things to Nicole,” Waverly said. “That’s why you were so scared.”

            “I don’t think that excuses anything.”

            “Not excuses, explains.” Waverly squeezed Wynonna’s fingers. “Nicole is not our father. She is not Bobo. You and me, we made good decisions when it came to the people we married. You didn’t need to worry that she’d hurt me.”

            “You had that bruise—”

            “And I swear I told you the truth about it. A convict punched me when the jury declared him guilty.” Waverly laughed weakly and pulled Wynonna into a hug. “God. I can’t believe we all lost so much time because of this.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t be. I wouldn’t have wanted to tell me either.” Waverly pulled back with a smile. “Can I ask you one thing though? Since we’re alone, finally?”

            “Sure.”

            “Doc?”

            “What about him?”

            Waverly shrugged. “You wanted to make sure I wasn’t making the same mistake as Willa with Nicole. I want to make sure you’re not doing it either.”

            “Doc isn’t like that,” Wynonna said. “He’s... he’s a little rougher on the outside, sure, and he may come off as... aloof or uncaring, but all he’s ever wanted is to be loved. And I love him. And Dolls loves him. And there’s nothing Doc would ever do to screw that up. And even if there was... he’s too sweet below all that rough and tumble crap. He’s been through too much to hurt anyone else.”

            Waverly nodded. “So you do love him.”

            “More than I thought possible.”

            “And Dolls?”

            “If anything, I love him more now.” Wynonna shrugged. “Maybe it’s not normal, maybe people don’t do this, but maybe not everyone fits together in pairs. We work as a threesome. We work better that way.”

            “Okay,” Waverly said. “One suggestion.”

            “What?”

            “Don’t call yourselves a threesome or all anyone’s gonna think about is sex.”

            Wynonna laughed and slapped Waverly playfully on the shoulder.

            Doc re-entered the room carrying three cups of coffee and handed on to each girl. “Seems like you two are getting along much better now,” he said as he blew on his cup.

            Wynonna looked at Waverly and smiled. Waverly smiled back and then immediately went into protective sibling mode. Wynonna groaned as she quizzed Doc on his history, his education, his career background. His answers were eclectic and all of them seemed to floor Waverly for just a moment before she moved dutifully onto the next question. Halfway through, Wynonna reached her hand out and Doc took it, pressing a kiss to her knuckles as he listened to Waverly.

            Afternoon became evening. They ate in the cafeteria and visited Willa when she woke up. Waverly stepped in tentatively and was met with Willa’s stony silence. Not that that deterred Waverly in the least. She scrambled right to the bed, gathered Willa carefully in her arms, and hugged her while she whispered broken apologies until they were both crying.

            When visiting hours ended, Nicole came to pick up Waverly, and Doc and Wynonna headed for the truck. Wynonna checked her phone as they went and frowned.

            “What?” Doc said.

            “Dolls never checked in.”

            “Does he usually?”

            “No,” Wynonna said. Her steps slowed. “Not normally. But... with everything that’s been going on, leaving me with you... I would have thought I’d have at least one text telling me where the nearest AA meeting is.”

            Doc laughed and swung his arm around her shoulders. “I guess he finally trusts us.”

            “Don’t get my hopes up.” She pocketed her phone and then turned around to face him. He paused to look down at her curiously and she spent a good minute looking up into his blue eyes, marvelling over how easily she could have missed him, how likely it was that there were a million parallel universes in which she’d never met him.

            “What?” he whispered.

            “I love you.” She kissed him, soft but hungry. “I wanted you to know.”

            “I love you too.” He turned her around and patted her lightly on the ass, pushing her towards the truck. “Let’s get home and tell that husband of yours we love him too.”

            Wynonna smiled and headed for the truck. Slipping behind the wheel, she waited for Doc to buckle in before starting the engine. He turned on the radio, flipped it to a country station, and blasted the sound. For the whole ride home, they butchered the lyrics to popular country songs at the top of their lungs.

            Inside the house, Wynonna called, “Dolls! Dolls!” and got no response. She pulled her phone back out and saw no calls from him, no texts. She dialed his number as she started up the stairs but was immediately put through to voicemail.

            When she had checked the bedroom and the bathroom, she scrambled back down the stairs, calling, “Hey, Doc, did you get anything from Dolls? He’s not here and his phone’s off, but maybe...” She trailed off when she saw Doc standing in the kitchen staring blankly at a piece of paper on the counter. “What?” she said, stepping forward.

            Doc held out a hand to stop her. His eyes were ice and fire, his mouth a thin, blank line. “Don’t freak out, darlin’.”

            Wynonna snatched the paper. It read:

            _You can take my boy, you can take my girl, but I can take your husband too._


	17. Doc

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Wynonna snapped.

            Doc grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to meet her eyes but she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t stop struggling. “Wynonna. Wynonna!” He shook her until she stopped pushing back against him and met his gaze with the kind of fiery glare that made him want to let go. “We need to be smart about this. Call the police. Tell them what’s happened.”

            “You want me to call the police?” Wynonna narrowed her eyes. “You want officers coming over here, asking questions, dusting for fingerprints, wasting their _goddamn time_ when we can go and kick Bobo’s ass ourselves right now?”

            “We don’t know where he is,” Doc said.

            “Neither do the cops! Look around, Doc. Dolls wasn’t taken from here. He never came home.”

            Doc spared a glance into the living room and another into the dining room. He had to agree. Everything was in its place, not even a knick knack out of place. If Dolls had been jumped in the house, the whole place would be a disaster zone, from broken glass to flipped furniture.

            He sighed. “Fine. But they have better resources.”

            “They have legal resources,” she said. “I have better resources.”

            “So what, Wynonna?” Doc snapped. He let go of her and took a step back. “You’re just going to jump in your truck and drive around shouting his name through the open window? You think Bobo’s just going to show up and take the challenge?”

            She shoved the note in his face. “What is this if it’s not a fucking challenge?”

            Doc took the note and crumpled it in his fist. He tried to meet Wynonna’s wild eyes, tried to think of the words to appeal to her senses. But he had no idea. Whether she loved him or not, whether he loved her or not, he didn’t know her the way Dolls did. He couldn’t fix this for her.

            “Let’s call the cops,” he said in his calmest voice.

            “You call the cops.” She took a step around him. “I’m going to go find my husband.”

            Doc grabbed her arm and swung her around, refused to let himself jump at the anger and hatred burning in her eyes. “Let me go,” he said. “I’ll find him. You wait here.”

            “Why?”

            “Because I’m the one Dolls can live without.”

            Wynonna stared at him for a long moment and Doc thought she might agree. She might deflate and sit on the couch waiting for the police to come. Then, like a burst fire hydrant or a sudden fireworks show, she said, “Bullshit. He needs _both_ of us. I need _both_ of you. And you sure as shit need us both too. So stop whatever dumbass self-pity party this is that keeps making you think we love each other more than we love you. Like it or not, you’re part of this fucking family now. And Earps don’t lose fucking family.”

            “Aren’t you Dolls’?”

            “I never took his last name and I’m never taking yours.” Wynonna waved her pointer finger in his face as she spoke. “Whatever the hell it is.”

            “Holliday.”

            She considered. “I like that, actually. There’s joke potential there.” Then she turned and started back into the house. “Are you coming or what?”

             “Of course, but you do know you’re walking further _into_ the house.” Doc started after her as she chuckled.

            “You didn’t think we were going without guns, did you, Mr. Holliday?” She rolled a combination lock on a large wooden armoire and popped it open. She stepped back from the open doors to reveal a large collection of guns.

            Doc whistled. “How the hell did you get so many guns this side of the border?”

            “Cop husband and a hunting license.” Wynonna tossed him a handgun and then an old-school pistol. “In case you’re more comfortable with that, old man.” She picked up two handguns herself, tucked one into her waistband and the other into her boot. Then she took out a long, shiny, silver gun and ran her fingers over it.

            “What’s that?” Doc said.

            “My father’s gun. Peacemaker,” she said. She turned around to show it to him. “Been in the family for generations.” Her eyes on the gun, she turned it over carefully and then tossed it carelessly back into the armoire. “I think it’s time is over.” She locked the cabinet again and headed for the front door.

            “You got a plan of action?”

            “We’re gonna go to your old place and politely ask Wyatt to call Bobo and figure out where the fuck he is.” Wynonna exited the house and scrambled down the front steps, heading for the truck.

            On her heels, Doc asked, “And if he refuses?”

            Wynonna turned at the driver’s door. “I’m gonna beat the shit out of him.”

            Doc felt a pang for his old friend, his first love, but he nodded all the same. He’d beat the shit out of Wyatt himself if it meant saving Dolls.

            They got into the truck and gunned it, Wynonna driving barely better now than she had drunk. At the apartment complex, Wynonna rung all the bells until the door buzzed open and she marched inside. She skipped the elevator in favour of the stairs and was soon pounding at Doc’s old door.

            He heard scrambling inside, the sound of heavy breathing, and the unmistakable jangle of a belt buckle. He cursed under his breath, not wanting to deal with one of Wyatt’s many girls along with Wyatt himself. The door opened to a panting Wyatt who didn’t even have time to get out a word before Wynonna pushed him back into the apartment and stepped inside.

            “You’re gonna call Bobo and tell him you need to meet. Right fucking now.” Wynonna said.

            Wyatt scoffed. “And I’d do that why?”

            “Oh, shit, sorry. I forgot the motivation.” She pulled out a gun and pressed the muzzle to his forehead. “Right fucking now.”

            Wyatt threw his hands up in the air. Doc said, “Wynonna.” Jeremy squealed.

            Jeremy.

            Doc turned his head to see Jeremy in his underwear hiding behind the door to Wyatt’s bedroom. A bitter laugh left Doc’s throat and he turned all his hatred, all his humiliation, onto Wyatt. “Guess you’re not that homophobic after all, huh?” Doc said. “What? It was just me who disgusted you? Am I not young and pretty enough for you?”

            Wynonna placed a hand on his chest. “Off topic.”

            Doc grabbed his own gun and pointed it at Wyatt. “Do what the lady says?”

            Wyatt laughed nervously. “What? So you guys hook up and now you’re some sort of shake down team? You want my wallet? My money? You could have just come when I wasn’t home. I know you still got a key, Doc.”

            “Do I look like I have time for your bullshit?” Wynonna snapped. She pushed Wyatt back with the gun until he hit the wall and then leaned in close. “My husband is _missing_. Your boss has him. So you’re gonna get on your phone and you’re gonna find out where the fuck Bobo is and if you do it fast enough, I might not blow your face off.”

            “Is this a joke?”

            “Do we look like we’re laughing?” Doc said. He held his gun steady, kept his eyes on Wyatt, but he felt his stomach in his feet. Part of him wanted Wyatt to resist, wanted to kick the shit out of him for everything he’d put him through. But Wynonna might take offence to that, might worry if he was still hurt by Wyatt and his ex going at it behind his back.

            “Okay, okay,” Wyatt said. “Fine. Just let me get my phone.”

            Wynonna backed off just enough to let Wyatt reach into his back pocket. He fumbled through the unlock code and then Wynonna took it from him. “Just in case you don’t call the right number.” She pressed the buttons herself and held the phone under Wyatt’s chin.

            Through crackling static, Bobo said, “You know I’m busy, Wyatt.”

            “I need to see you. It’s an emergency.”

            “What kind of emergency?”

            Wyatt’s mouth opened wide but no words came out. Doc scrambled for his phone and wrote out the best lie he could come up with as Bobo’s impatience made itself felt over the crackling phone line. He shoved his phone screen in Wyatt’s face and waited.

            “I...I...” Wyatt took a deep breath. “I found Doc. I’ve got him. But he’s fighting pretty heavily and I don’t... I don’t know how long I can hold him. I need to see you right away. Hand him over. You can teach him a lesson.”

            Doc lowered his phone and ignored the concerned look Wynonna shot his way.

            The phone crackled some more and then Bobo said, “Fine. Drop him at the usual place.” The line went dead.

            “What’s the usual place?” Wynonna said.

            “The Billings’ warehouse,” Doc said. He grabbed her wrist and made her lower the gun out of Wyatt’s face. With one last look at Wyatt, one look he hoped conveyed everything he’d ever needed to say to the man, he turned for the door. “Let’s go.”

            “I still want to put a bullet in his knee,” Wynonna said.

            “Only makes him more likely to call the cops, sweetheart.” Doc took her hand and pulled her back. She dropped the phone as they walked and they left the apartment door open as their steps sped up. By the time they hit the stairwell, they were sprinting.

            “Do the cops still have surveillance on the warehouses?” Doc asked as he fumbled his seatbelt. The car was already moving.

            “No clue.” Wynonna pulled out her phone, hit a button, and said, “Call Nicole.”

            The phone started to ring.

            “What fresh hell is this?” Doc muttered.

            Wynonna must have gathered the last of her mirth to laugh at him.

            After a few rings, Nicole picked up. “Hey, Wynonna. We’re just—”

            “Do you still have surveillance on the Billings’ warehouse?” Wynonna cut her off.

            “What?”

            “The Billings warehouse. Surveillance. Come on, Nicole.”

            The sound of paper flipping and binders hitting plastic tables filled the line. A couple people shouted in the background. Then, “No. After the stakeout was a bust, it was called off. But—”

            Wynonna hit the end call button quick and brought both hands back to the wheel. Her foot pressed down further on the gas and Doc had flashbacks to barrelling down the highway, the near misses, Wynonna leaning out the window. He touched his hand to her thigh.

            “Careful, darlin’,” he said. “Doesn’t help Dolls if we both wind up dead.”

            Grudgingly, Wynonna slowed the truck.

            Doc sighed into the silence. “I still think we should loop in the cops.”

            “And tell them what? That Dolls was kidnapped so we threatened your ex-roommate into giving us a location?” Wynonna scoffed. “It also doesn’t help Dolls if we both wind up in jail.”

            “He wouldn’t want you to do it this way.”

            “Well, fuck him. And fuck his way.”

            Doc let their conversation lapse into silence. He watched the roads whip by, the other cars slow in response to Wynonna’s erratic driving. He half feared the cops would pull them over before they ever got to the warehouse, before they even had a chance to put their half-assed plan into action. Not that there was a plan other than going in there with guns blazing and demanding Bobo give Dolls back.

            As they neared the warehouse district, Wynonna slowed the truck. She stopped a few blocks away but didn’t move, barely breathed.

            Doc took her hand and squeezed. “We’re going to get him back. I promise.”

            She nodded.

            “Everything’s going to be okay.” He kissed her knuckles and then her temple.

            She turned and kissed him full on the lips, hard enough that he felt his lips cramp. When she pulled back, her breath was heavy and her eyes were teary. “Promise me,” she breathed out, “promise me that whatever happens, that if we lose Dolls, or if you lose me—”

            “Wynonna—”

            “No.” She swallowed hard and blinked back the tears. “Promise me that if I don’t get out of there, you’ll get him out. Promise me you’ll take care of him. He’s not as strong as he looks.”

            “He once said the same thing about you.”

            Wynonna laughed through the tears. “Promise me.”

            Doc kissed her again with all the softness he could muster. He wiped a tear off her cheek, brushed the hair back from her face. “For as long as I live, I will never leave you or Dolls alone. That I promise.”

            She nodded.

            “Promise me that if you lose me, you and Dolls aren’t gonna fall apart.” He swallowed his emotions and tried to focus on her eyes even though they were too close to his own. “You’re the strongest couple I know. And you love each other so much. Don’t leave him alone. Don’t leave yourself alone.”

            Wynonna let out a weak sob and then nodded. She pressed their lips together hard and desperate and with all the fear in the world. He held her tight, let the emotion spill between them, tasted the salt on her lips without being able to tell whose tears touched his tongue.

            She pulled back first. “Earps don’t lose family.” Her voice held conviction. So much that he believed her.


	18. Dolls

Dolls watched Bobo pace around the room from under half-closed eyelids. He was almost getting bored of Bobo’s torture techniques. Because while it was one thing to be tortured for information, to be brought to the brink of death to protect his country’s secrets, it was a whole nother thing to be tortured just for the hell of it. And, quite frankly, Dolls had dealt with enough domestic abusers to know all they wanted was a woman simpering at their feet. Dolls wasn’t quite sure his stoic silence did it for Bobo.

            Pretending to be asleep had gotten Bobo off his back for a while. Dolls had spent the time with his head down, his eyes on the floor, and had tried to figure out what exactly Bobo wanted. Was it Willa back in his house? Was it the investigation shut down? Did he just want to cause Wynonna pain? If so, he was going about it all wrong. Wynonna would be pissed off, not hurt.

            “Bobo,” Dolls said, aware the word would probably earn him another punch to the face. He twisted his hands in his bonds and was glad to feel they were loosening ever so slightly even if it was at the expense of the skin on his wrists. “You wanna fill me in on what the plan is here? What you’re waiting for?”

            “Waiting for?” Bobo said as he turned to consider his prisoner. “I’m not waiting for a damn thing, Detective Dolls. Unless you count waiting for the life to drain out of your pathetic eyes.”

            Dolls nodded and pursed his lips. “In that case, you’re gonna have to try a little harder.”

            Bobo hissed and stepped up close to Dolls. He got right in his face, spraying spittle with every word. “You think I want you to die quickly? That I want you to feel no pain? No. You’re gonna feel it. You’re gonna feel yourself losing every inch of your life force. Just like Willa.”

            “Willa’s alive,” Dolls said, “and I’m not the one who was killing her.”

            Bobo smacked him hard. His gold rings dug into Dolls’ skin and caused fresh drops of blood to trickle down his chin. Bobo spat and stepped back. “You took my best whore and then you took my wife. You’re going to pay for that.”

            “Doc is your best whore?” Dolls scoffed. “I’d give him a B+ in bed at best and he’s not much of a looker.”

            Before Bobo could reply, shouting started up outside. There was a heavy bang against the warehouse door and the sound of rattling metal echoed through the empty space. Dolls took advantage of the distraction to flex his hands some more, to look for more give in the knots. He glanced towards his gun and phone on the table. If he could shoot Bobo and then call for backup, the situation would be under control in hours.

            “What’s happening out there?” Bobo shouted. He picked up a rifle and rested it against his shoulder as he stepped closer to the door.

            Silence.

            Then two gunshots in quick succession.

            Dolls struggled against his bonds harder, hoping Bobo’s “guards” were distracted enough by whatever was going on outside not to notice the chair legs bouncing off the floor. He scraped his skin against the rough rope and bit his tongue to keep back the hiss of pain in his throat. Silence reigned.

            “If you think I’m gonna open those doors without a confirmation,” Bobo said, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

            A grunt. Then, “We’re fine out here, boss.”

            Bobo neared the door. “What was the noise?”

            “False alarm.”

            “I heard gunshots.”

            “Gotta get rid of the raccoons somehow.” The gruff voice had steadied out but Dolls still didn’t like the sound of it, didn’t trust it. He pulled against the rope as hard as he could, keeping his mouth in a tight line to stop from grunting.

            Bobo peaked his head out the door.

            The door slammed back into his face and Dolls slipped his hands free from the ropes. Before the shooting could begin, before he could see who was at the door, he jumped for his gun. People shouted. Shots fired. He scrambled under the metal table, trying hard to breathe and tell what the hell was going on at the same time. If he hadn’t been bloodied and bruised from head to toe, he’d have gone out swinging.

            “Move your asses! Get them!” Bobo shouted.

            “Wynonna!” Doc shouted. Then there was a crash and Dolls saw a pile of wooden crates cascade to the floor.

            Dolls hissed out a curse and peaked out from his hiding spot. He couldn’t see Wynonna and Doc from his vantage point but he couldn’t exactly leave them alone. At his count, there had been three people inside the warehouse and five guards. If the two guards at the door were down, that left six people total.

            Dolls rolled out from under the table and hid behind the nearest stack of boxes. He surveyed his surroundings and saw the two inside guards were down, bullets in their knees. Silently, he praised Willa for teaching Wynonna how to shoot a gun.

            Carefully, Dolls made his way around the boxes, looking for where Wynonna and Doc were hiding. Bobo was pacing the empty space, looking this way and that, shouting his lungs off. It’d be easy to settle his gun on top of the boxes and take him out with one shot. And Dolls felt the urge to, the fire in his gut, but that wasn’t the way things were done anymore.

            With a few more steps, Dolls caught sight of Wynonna and Doc cowering across the room. Although cowering wasn’t quite the word for it. Wynonna looked like a furiously coiled spring and Doc seemed to be holding her down while he whispered something in her ear. Dolls hoped those words were, “Stay down and we won’t get killed.”

            But, of course, why would he have expected anything sensible from those two?

            A moment later, they dashed out from their hiding places, guns blazing. Doc took out two prowling guards, putting the number of enemies down to two. Three against two. Those were odds Dolls could work with.

            He jumped out from behind the boxes, whirled on the guard up on the catwalk, and shot him in the thigh. He went down with a metallic bang as Doc turned to him in surprise. “Nice shot,” Doc said. “Too bad you never taught your wife that trick.”

            Dolls frowned until he turned to see Wynonna with her gun up, the muzzle against Bobo’s forehead. Doc came to stand beside him and said, “Her aim’s shit.”

            “Yet they’re all kneecapped.”

            Doc smiled. “I have a few special talents.”

            Together, they walked towards Wynonna. Dolls placed his hand on the small of her back, watched as she took a deep breath. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “Everything’s fine.”

            “He hurt my sister,” Wynonna said. “He hurt you.”

            “You’re not a murderer, Wynonna.”

            She flicked her eyes to him, full of fire. “You know that’s not true.”

            Dolls smiled at her, too happy to see her to bother with all the difficulties, all the reasons he shouldn’t be. He brushed the hair back from her face, let his fingers linger against her cheek. “Bobo’s going to jail for a long, long time,” he whispered. “You don’t have to do this again. You don’t have to go through it again.”

            Wynonna’s hand shook and then she let it drop. She stepped back.

            “Well, let’s not let him completely off the hook.” Doc stepped forward and pistol-whipped Bobo. He dropped to the ground. When Doc turned back to them, to what Dolls was sure were their identical shocked expressions, Doc shrugged. “Self defense and all that bullshit.”

            Wynonna snorted a laugh and tucked her gun away. “We should probably call the cops now.”

            “You didn’t call the cops?” Dolls said.

            Doc held up his hands in surrender. “She wouldn’t let me.”

            “That was incredibly stupid,” Dolls said. Then he softened and took Wynonna in his arms. “Thank you.”

            “It was all Doc,” she said. She pulled away with a sad smile and brushed her fingers over his wounds. He was sure most of them would scar. Taking a shaky breath, she said, “He might be the fastest draw in the Wild West.”

            “Alberta isn’t the Wild West,” Doc said, “but I’ll take it.”

            Dolls glanced towards him and then held out his hand. Doc stepped forward and Dolls pulled him into the fold of his arms. He liked the feel of both of them against his chest, the two loves of his life curled in his warmth. He kissed both of their heads and said, “We’re safe now.”

            They stood there for a moment before Dolls’ legs started to tremble and Doc grabbed him to keep him upright. Wynonna went for the chair and together they urged him back into it. He looked up at their earnest expressions, their open and honest worry. He wanted to say things to reassure them and at the same time he wanted to say nothing at all. As Doc started to clean the cuts, his rough hands surprisingly gentle, Wynonna called 911. She gave Dolls’ badge number, their location and the number of shooters like a pro, like she’d made these calls a hundred times before.

            When she came back, Dolls said, “Why’d you never join the force?”

            “I don’t like cops.” She smiled and pressed a light kiss to his bruised lips before settling down to sit on the floor.

            They stayed like that – in a loose circle, barely touching – until the sound of sirens touched the sky. Then they were split up to tell their respective stories and Dolls kept quiet about whatever had happened on their side. He wasn’t sure what story they’d concoct, what excuse they’d give for not calling the police right away. Knowing Wynonna, it would involve a complicated ransom and a warning not to call the cops.

            Eliza pulled Dolls to his feet when things were wrapping up and said, “You’ve gotta go to the hospital.” When he started to protest, she held up a hand to cut him off. “Standard procedure. But I thought you might want to be the one to put the cuffs on Bobo.”

            Dolls looked down at the man on the floor. The man he’d been hoping to put behind bars since the day he met him. The man he’d been inadvertently chasing for longer than he knew. Then he glanced towards Nicole who was coaxing Wynonna into the back of an ambulance, smiling and laughing even though Wynonna was fighting her with everything she had.

            Dolls smiled. “Give Detective Haught the collar. She did all the work.”

            “You’re the one with all the bruises,” Eliza said.

            “I’ve had worse.”

            He let Eliza lead him towards the ambulances but he stopped when he reached Wynonna’s. Her voice carried out. “Look, I’m not hurt. There’s not a scratch on me. No one shot me. I need you to let me ride with my husband.”

            The paramedic said, “It’s standard proc—”

            “Fuck standard procedure. I need to be sitting beside either my husband or my boyfriend or preferably both while I ride to the hospital or I’m just going to scream the whole way there. Is that what you’d like? Because I can demonstrate how I sound when I’m screaming if you really want me to.”

            Dolls chuckled and poked his head into the ambulance. “Let her come with me,” he said. He held out his hand and Wynonna took it before the paramedic could protest. Dolls put her feet on the ground before saying, “Tell your supervisor Detective Dolls said he needed her for questioning during the ride. It’s okay.”

            Wynonna snorted as Dolls led her away. “Smooth, Dolls.”

            He stopped at the next ambulance where Doc was doing a much more violent job of protesting the same point. He calmed when he caught sight of them though and fixed the paramedic with his softest expression. “They’re right here,” he said, “and look at them.”

            The paramedic turned and winced when he saw Dolls.

            “Maybe let Dolls take the stretcher,” Doc said. He stood carefully and walked over to the two of them. Without confirmation from the paramedic, he started to help the other two aboard. The paramedic sighed, grumbled, but ultimately closed the door on all three of them.

            Dolls sat and took both their hands. He let his eyes shift from one pair of blue eyes to the next and he forgot every ache and pain in his body, every bleeding cut and stained bandage. Taking a deep breath, he watched them watch him and each other and he wondered all over again why the world would send two perfectly broken people to love him.

            “I love you,” Dolls said.

            Wynonna squeezed his fingers.

            “We love you,” Doc said.

            They said nothing else for the whole ride to the hospital.


	19. Epilogue

Willa sat with her head held high. Waverly held her hand under the table. Wynonna reached across the little fence to place her hand on top of theirs. None of them breathed.

            “We the jury find the defendant” – their hands squeezed tight together – “guilty.”

            In seconds, they were all on their feet and suffocated in a hug that had been decades coming. Tears ran down Waverly’s face and Wynonna kissed her cheek. Willa barely held them, her whole body shaking, the tears in her eyes but not on her cheeks. Not one of them looked up to watch Bobo leave the courtroom. Not one of them listened to the judge as she remanded him to custody. Not one of them could breathe without the edges of sobs or laughter escaping.

            When Wynonna returned home hours later, it was to the smell of lasagna. She sighed and dropped her bag by the door. As she walked into the kitchen, she started shedding the courtroom layers. First the jacket, then the too-tight pencil skirt, then she unbuttoned the white shirt Dolls had so lovingly buttoned up for her that morning. Both her partners had offered to come with her but she’d shaken her head. She’d needed to be there with her sisters, not her lovers.

            Doc looked up first and smiled. “You missed us that much, huh?”

            Dolls glanced away from the carrot he was chopping and laughed. “I think it has more to do with the clothes than us.”

            Wynonna shrugged and slipped onto a stool. She was aware of both men’s eyes on her as she popped a cherry into her mouth. Pantless and with just a white shirt covering her bra didn’t mean she’d immediately jump into bed for them. Plus, they’d made a deal to eat dinner first otherwise she totally would have dragged them both upstairs that instant. It had been a long day and all she wanted was to feel all the love that surrounded her as sweat on her skin.

            “Twenty minutes ‘til dinner,” Doc said. He turned on the light in the oven, nodded to himself, and then looked at her. “How’d it go?”

            “Guilty,” Wynonna said.

            Doc and Dolls smiled at her. Dolls took her hand and kissed it. Doc kissed the top of her head. And they moved on to different topics, to different problems, and to different conversations. Wynonna felt the weight of it all fall off her shoulders as she sat there stealing vegetables from the salad Dolls was making. It no longer seemed to matter that they were three instead of two, that the world didn’t understand them, that under one roof they were a cop, a bounty hunter, and a former hooker.

            They ate dinner and cuddled in front of the TV while watching _The Mindy Project._ Only once it was late and the dishes were cleaned did they head up to the bedroom. Wynonna stood by the door while she watched the men undress, their movements slow and lazy as they debated whether or not Danny was a good guy. She stayed out of it as she did with most arguments between them. They were much better at figuring things out on their own.

            When Dolls sat down at the end of the bed to take off his socks, Wynonna approached. She sat down on his lap as he laughed in surprise and started to kiss his neck. As his laughter turned more to murmured moans, she felt Doc’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her shirt down her arms.

            They rolled into bed shedding the last of their clothes. Wynonna fell on her side, her arms wrapped around Dolls’ neck as she kissed him. She felt Doc’s solid weight at her back, his hand sneaking under the lace of her underwear. She moaned as he swiped his thumb over her clitoris and said, “Damn tease,” when he moved lower.

            Doc chuckled against her skin. “You love it.”

            “I love you,” she said. She bent her neck to kiss him, to taste the loving bite of his cigarette breath. Dolls kissed her collarbone and she turned back to him. “And I love you too.”

            “Think we’ve determined that we all love each other,” Dolls mumbled, his lips moving lower across her chest.

            She hummed. “Think we know who’s impatient tonight.”

            Doc sighed. “Too bad he won’t let me fuck it out of him.”

            “Anything for you,” Dolls said, sarcasm fighting and failing against the desire in his tone.

            Doc and Wynonna exchanged a glance and then, in a second, Wynonna was up and looking for the lube. When she turned back, Doc and Dolls were doing something that might have been making out and might have been wrestling at the foot of the bed.

            She placed the lube on the pillow and then gently coaxed them up the bed. As they kissed each other, they reached out to touch her legs, to brush their fingers through her hair, to respond to her whispered demands. And she let the feeling wash over her, the feeling she’d been denying herself her whole life, the feeling she’d never thought she’d deserved: _Happiness._


End file.
